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kitty-tea · 8 months ago

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The prettiest girl

Link to my masterlist here

Pairing: Cedric Diggory x reader

Word count: 1.3k

Summary: You’re at a Halloween party in the Hufflepuff common room when Cedric asks to dance with you.

A/N: I know it’s not Halloween but for some reason the idea to write this story hit me about a week ago. Also it’s low key inspired from that one scene at the party from season 2 episode 6 of Ghost Whisperer. And I’m still working on my other stories.

You self-consciously tugged your short skirt down your legs and adjusted your stockings as you twirled around in front of the full length mirror. Your angel costume was far sexier than anything you’ve ever worn in your life, so you weren’t used to showing this much skin in front of other people. You considered asking the other girls to check you for their opinions, but considering that you were one who was mostly known for keeping to yourself, you decided not to. Of course you wanted to look your absolute best for the last Halloween party you’d be attending at Hogwarts before you graduated.

You were also nervous. What if other people didn’t like your costume? You weren’t very resourceful, so it wasn’t like you made it yourself from scratch like how other students have done with their costumes. You had planned ahead and had taken a trip to a Muggle costume shop before school started, purchasing a corset, a halo, wings, a skirt, a pair of stockings, and high heels, all white. Since you were a witch, you had the advantage of being able to use magic to make the halo float above your head wherever you went, adding a layer of authenticity to your costume.

By the time you came out of your dorm, the party had already started in the common room. You weren’t the only student that had gone all out, just about everyone else was dressed up, like with every Halloween party you’ve been to, and the common room almost looked completely different than how it looked the rest of the school year. In contrast to the sunny warmth that your house colors provided, tonight it was a reflection of the starry dark skies casted with a chill that reminded you of those horror or mystery novels. Of course your costume stood out because of that. You were like a drop of pure white snow shining through a big shadow of darkness.

You sensed other people’s eyes on you, yet you felt more comforted by convincing yourself that no one else was paying attention to you, just as it always was.

Still keeping your head down, you turned to the punch bowl and poured yourself a drink. Taking small sips, you looked around at all the dancing couples or groups of friends. It’s not that you were jealous, you just couldn’t help wondering what your school days would’ve been like if you were a different type of person, one who was more outgoing and bold. Would you have been sorted into the house you were in now? Probably not, but it didn’t hurt you to wonder about different ways your life could have turned out.

Your ears perked up when you noticed the difference in the change of music. The slow, alluring melody had replaced the loud, wild beats. You saw the center of the room occupied by couples in their embrace, alone in each other’s arms. Seeing as you never had someone to share that moment with, you also wondered what it’d be like to be in someone else’s arms like that. Would you feel as if the world around you didn’t exist? Or would you feel self-conscious and too aware of the imaginary judging?

You took another sip of your punch, wondering if maybe you should have spiked your own drink with vodka.

You turned your back to the party and were about to get another drink when you felt a tap on your shoulder.

You didn’t expect to be face to face with Cedric Diggory, the captain of your house’s Quidditch team who also happened to be the most popular boy in school, at least from what you heard. For some reason he decided to dress up as a vampire. At least that’s what you assumed. Not that you were complaining. You adored reading stories about vampires and other supernatural creatures.

You didn’t know what to say to Cedric, not that you ever do. You remembered how he’d smile and wave at you in the corridors or say hello in between classes. There were also those times where he could have chosen any of the numerous vacant seats to study at in the library, but for some reason he’d always ask if the seat next to yours was taken, and instead of responding to him in words, you’d only manage to shake your head.

And now, here he was, with his hand reaching out towards you, calling your name. “Would you like to dance with me?”

He was smiling confidently, like someone who knew they reached their goal or was about to reach their goal.

You decided you didn’t care about distracting yourself with your drink anymore, so you ditched it for better company.

You took Cedric’s hand and watched as it engulfed yours. You tried not to trip in your heels as he led you to where the other people were dancing.

You didn’t think your heartbeat would ever calm down as he placed his hands on your waist and smiled at you in a way that always made you get butterflies in your stomach. With those same butterflies continuing to flutter, you took a deep breath as you reached your hands up onto his shoulders.

He must have sensed your unsureness, as he was the one to take the lead, guiding you slowly through the music with small steps.

You felt your cheeks burn the deepest shade of red. This was the closest you had ever been to Cedric. You could have sworn his eyes kept going down to your lips as he subtly licked his own bottom lip. You wondered just what he could be thinking.

You hadn’t noticed that the song had ended until you heard his voice. “You’re the prettiest girl here.” He said, as he stroked his thumb across your cheek before tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You didn’t know a gesture so small could have such a big effect on you, making your heart skip a beat and melt at the same time.

“You’re always the prettiest girl everywhere you are.” He continued. You couldn’t believe he said that about you. You heard other students and even the teachers around the school talk about how amazing Cedric is, and you didn’t think in a million years he’d spare the time in his day to pay attention to you.

“Really? You think I’m pretty?” Those were the most words you’d ever spoken to him in one sentence.

“Yeah, most of the guys think so too. I didn’t think you noticed. Guess I was right.” You felt your cheeks flush as a not so subtle smirk made its way onto Cedric’s face.

You let the conversation die down as the next song came on. You almost gasped as you felt Cedric lightly digging his thumbs into your hips, rubbing them in circles as he pulled you against his chest, right where you could feel and hear his heartbeat against your cheek.

Letting one of his hands go from your hip, he switched to running his fingers through your hair, an action you quickly found to be comforting.

When the song ended, he held you at arm’s length, and you were once again reminded of how small you were compared to him both in physical size and notoriety. Since you couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eyes, you were at eye-level with chest.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked as he put his fingers under your jaw and lifted your gaze to his eyes, searching for any sign of discomfort. His deep husky voice made your heart melt as well as the unexpected request.

You nodded, and you both leaned into each other. When his lips touched yours, you felt an electrifying sensation spread throughout your entire body.

Even though you weren’t expecting to share a kiss that night with the most popular boy in school, you were very pleased with the outcome.

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stayxlix · 6 months ago

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below the cut is a little bit of otde han's background.<3 (ft. minho, before either of them met the others). its just something that popped into my head, but if this isn't what you'd envisioned for their backstory then pls feel free to ignore lol. i love all of you very much, i see your asks, they mean the world to me, and i promise to get to each and every one of them. i also hope to be able to release more for this story soon.💕

wc: 2.3k

warnings: violence, fighting, injury, blood, language

Han Jisung's head hurt.

A splitting headache. The kind where every beat of pain sent sharp streaks of light flashing across his vision. The cheering crowd—a chaotic blend of voices that felt like a hammer to his already pounding skull—had him fighting the urge to double over. But, when he really thought about it, Jisung supposed the fact that that the crowd was cheering for him made it worth enduring.

Standing in the center of the fighting pit, Han Jisung lifted his aching head. He gritted his teeth, peering through the haze of pain to cast a lazy smirk in the direction of the spectators. And, as expected, the noise surged.

Mugs of warm ale sloshed as the onlookers swayed in tandem with the rhythmic chanting of his name. Among the sea of faces, Jisung locked eyes with a particularly dreadful-looking man in the front row. The man's teeth were yellowed and broken, and a leering grin spread across his scarred face as he raised his mug in Jisung's direction.

Jisung's smirk grew into something wild—as sharp and untamed as the danger that lurked beneath his charismatic exterior. The acrid scent of sweat and spilled ale mingled with the metallic tang of blood in the air as Jisung inhaled deeply—senses heightened by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Oh, his head was throbbing now. It very well might have been the worst headache of Han Jisung's life, but he was certain he would never get enough of this. This life, this moment. Though he didn't know any of these people personally, they knew him—knew his name and the reputation that came with it in the underworld beneath District 7.

With the feral smirk still dancing on his lips, Han Jisung cracked his bandaged knuckles, the sound echoing in the dim light of the pit. His dark eyes gleamed with challenge as he tilted his head to the side. With a single flick of his wrist and an inward curl of his fingers, Jisung beckoned his opponent forward—an invitation.

The burly, muscle-bound man before him emitted a low growl in response. His massive fist—nearly the size of Jisung’s head—clenched as he surged forward with a powerful swing. But Jisung was a predator in his element, reflexes honed to utter perfection. With a mere pivot of his heel he slipped effortlessly out of the path of the oncoming blow.

Keeping his movements lazy, Jisung slipped his hands into his pockets. "Is that all you've got?" he drawled, voice dripping with an arrogance that had always been just as much a weapon as his fists.

The cheers turned deafening in response to his taunt. But as Jisung fought the urge to bring his hands up to cover his ears, an unexpected call from an unfamiliar voice in the crowd sent a jolt coursing through his frame.

Somewhere above, a stranger shouted, "Let’s go, Ji!" and that simple nickname—Ji—so casually tossed into the air, struck a chord deep within him.

Memories of a time before the pits crept into the edges of Jisung's consciousness. Despite the foolishness of it, he cast another glance upward. The sea of spectators blurred, and a face flashed vividly before his eyes. A face from his past, one that now existed only in his memory. A ghost amidst the living.

Absence pressed against his chest, the reminder of a past that stubbornly refused to fade. But Jisung wouldn't allow himself to dwell on the past. Not now, not ever. Because he was Han fucking Jisung. His very existence was a testament to survival. And he was too viciously cunning, too dangerously charming, and too goddamn good at carving his way through this hellish excuse for a world to let himself succumb to grief.

So Jisung blinked away the face from his past. The face that wasn't really there at all. He blinked once, twice. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to focus on the present, and it was in that fleeting moment of distraction that his opponent seized the opportunity to deliver a powerful strike to his jaw.

The sudden impact sent a shockwave through Jisung's senses, snapping him back to reality as pain erupted from his bottom lip. It was the second hit he'd taken that night.

Two hits. Two rare lapses in his otherwise flawless defense.

The first had been a single, calculated blow that Jisung had purposely allowed the man to land to his temple, sparking the beginning of his headache.

The second punch to his jaw may have been unintentional, but Jisung hadn't flinched at either of the two hits. No, he welcomed them. He craved the warmth of the coppery blood as it pooled in his mouth, savoring the reminder of his own mortality. Not because he was some kind of sadist, but because Han Jisung had someone to see.

Behind a tattered black curtain in the stuffy underground cavern where the fighting pits lay, there was a young man with skilled hands and a quiet sort of intensity—a healer who called himself Minho.

In exchange for a portion of Jisung's winnings, Minho would discreetly tend to his injuries at the end of each fight. And if that meant Jisung would, at times, deliberately allow his opponents to get in a few hits...Well, whose business was it anyway? Longer fights meant bigger profits, and with Minho's skilled hands to patch him up afterward, Jisung was more than willing to oblige.

Feeling a sudden surge of determination at the thought of what—or rather, who—awaited him at the end of his current fight, Jisung decided enough was enough. He spat out a mouthful of blood, grimacing at the scarlet droplets on the dusty ground. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the stickiness across his skin. He cocked his head, and with a series of devastatingly accurate jabs to his opponent's weak points—followed by a well-timed sweep of his leg—it was a matter of moments before his nameless opponent lay sprawled on the ground in defeat.

A pouch of gold coins tugging heavily at his waist, his signature smirk plastered across his face, Jisung climbed out of the fighting pit with practiced ease. He pushed through the densely packed crowd, ignoring the outstretched hands reaching for him in celebration as he began to make his way across the bustling den.

As Jisung walked, his gaze swept over the faces of pretty young men and women—many of whom he recognized. Among them were individuals who had once been the recipients of his fleeting affection. Some still held in their eyes the simmering desire to fulfill his every whim, their stares following him with hungry longing. If he tried hard enough, he could still hear their voices, how their words had dripped with honeyed praise as they’d pleaded for his attention. A select few had even begged him to run away with them. Claiming to hail from the infamous District 9, their promises of endless wealth and material possessions were spoken with such fervor that it was almost convincing. Almost. But in those moments, Jisung had only chuckled, dismissing their lavish promises with a smirk before fully indulging himself in their company until the first light of dawn.

As tempting as it may have been to give in to the allure of those past desires again tonight, Jisung maintained an air of charming indifference as he continued on. He flashed grins and casual nods, and though his eyes might have lingered on some of the prettier faces, he kept moving.

With a determined stride, he pushed through the tattered black curtain into the cramped alcove where Minho worked.

The healer’s lips twitched up ever so slightly, as if he'd recognized Jisung from his footsteps alone. However, as he turned and his gaze lifted from his small workbench to Jisung's battered face—as his eyes roamed over the split lip, the trickle of blood staining Jisung's temple—the subtle warmth in Minho's expression vanished. Concern and something like disapproval flashed across his eyes before his features settled into stone once more. "Do you get paid more if you make the fight look real?" Minho asked, his eyes flicking down to the pouch of gold at Jisung's side.

Jisung blinked, caught off guard. It was unusual for Minho to initiate conversation, let alone be so direct. Surprise colored his face as he took a seat on the cot beside the healer. "You were watching?"

"I watched until you allowed that guy to hit you," Minho's voice was soft as he examined Jisung's temple. Leaning in slightly, his brow furrowed as his fingertips traced the contours of the wound. He reached for a clean cloth, soaking it in a solution that carried the faint scent of medicinal herbs and something acidic.

"How did you know—" Jisung hissed as Minho pressed the cloth to his wound, the sting causing his eyes to water.

"Relax," Minho interrupted, "You're not the only one who knows how to read a fight, you know."

A flush crept up Jisung's neck as his next attempt to form words turned into a series of awkward stammers. He opened his mouth, closed it, cleared his throat, and squirmed uncomfortably on the cot until Minho snapped at him to stop moving.

Eventually, for what might have been the first time in his life, Jisung gave up on speaking altogether.

Minutes slipped by as Minho continued his work, the only sound the soft rustle of bandages and the hum of activity beyond the curtain. Jisung sighed, closing his eyes as he allowed himself sink into the familiar routine of Minho's care.

"You need to be more careful," Minho murmured, his voice breaking through Jisung's reverie. "I can only patch you up so many times before the damage becomes permanent, and.." His hands suddenly withdrew, putting a pause to his work. "I won't be around here much longer."

Jisung's heart skipped a beat, his eyes snapping open. "You're leaving?" he asked, the words coming out a bit more panicked than he'd intended.

Minho nodded, his gaze dropping to avoid Jisung's stare. "I never planned on staying here long,” he admitted quietly. "There might be others out there who could use my help."

Jisung's mind raced as he processed Minho's words. Despite his suspicions about the healer's origins, he'd never asked how Minho had learned his trade. And sure, he supposed there were plenty of people out there who could benefit from Minho's skills—people who weren't deliberately getting themselves hurt—Jisung knew all too well the cutthroat nature of the world. The brutality of the outer districts.

"Where will you go?" Jisung's voice trembled with desperation, and he didn't give a damn if it made him look weak. Vulnerable. Jisung had grown accustomed to the routine of visiting Minho after each fight—the quiet moments of conversation with someone who wasn't chasing after him for their own benefit. Someone who genuinely listened and understood him. He'd come to rely on Minho's steady presence more than he cared to admit, and suddenly, the quiet healer felt like a lifeline slipping away.

Minho offered a slow shrug, and a familiar sense of absence settled over Jisung as he realized that Minho's departure would leave yet another void in his life. "I'll miss you," Jisung blurted before he could stop himself.

A softness touched Minho’s expression, a glimpse of sadness reflected in his eyes. "I know, Jisung.”

"When?" Jisung demanded, “When do you leave?” Though he was fully aware that Minho owed him nothing, he needed to know.

"Two days, maybe three." Minho replied, his tone gentle yet firm—resolute. As if he had been planning this. As if he had known for quite some time. As if leaving Jisung behind meant nothing to him at all.

Jisung withdrew the pouch of coins at his waist and held it out. The healer's dark eyes narrowed in confusion as he glanced between Jisung and the pouch. "What are you doing?"

"Take it," Jisung insisted, his jaw set in determination. "For everything,” he swallowed, the pouch shaking with the slight tremor in his hand.

Minho hesitated, shoulders tensing. "You've already paid me for—“

"You'll need it more than I do out there. I know that bracelet on your wrist holds more value to you than coins. So just take it." With a decisive thud, Jisung dropped the pouch at Minho's feet. He stood, and as some fundamental part of him cracked so violently that he could feel it in his chest, Jisung turned away from the quiet healer.

For the weeks Jisung had known him, Minho had healed far more than his external injuries. He had been a constant. The only constant left in Jisung's life. There was nothing Jisung wanted more than for Minho to understand the depth of his gratitude, to recognize the significance of his presence. But the words stuck in his throat, suffocated by his own damn pride and stubbornness as he took a step to leave.

Reaching to push aside the curtain, Jisung hesitated, his hand hovering in mid-air as he considered the path he'd chosen. The chaos of the fighting pits and the thrill that came with a life spent in the underworld had been enough for a long time. He’d settled on the notion that it might always be enough. But now..What if there was something else he needed? Something he couldn't quite name but felt stirring within himself. The desire for something more. A desire that Jisung feared would continue to grow and gnaw at him until he found the courage to explore what lay beyond the underworld of District 7.

In that moment of uncertainty, it was Minho who ignited that spark of courage in Jisung's soul as the healer stood, cleared his throat, and said, "Come with me."

#otde #thank you for reading.<3

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kimberlyannharts · 2 years ago

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LAST TIME ON.....Power Rangers Hyperforce? A bunch of crazy stuff happened that would take too long to explain because my god I am not rewatching all of those three-hour tabletop episodes just for a single one-shot book. You just need to know there’s a team of rangers called Hyperforce that was mentored by Jen who went through a lot of shenanigans across their time stream until everything broke and they didn’t get a second season and everything sucks. Also the pink ranger’s dad is the main bad guy and she works for him now. Got that? Okay. Power Rangers Unlimited: Hyperforce.

- eh you know what, let me just repost the recap from the previews. it does a decent job at summing up the first season so we might as well have it again as a reminder for what’s happening

- fuck you dad i’m supposed to be taking down my dad

- yeah sorry Chloe but your plan never would have worked. Jen is not allowed to die in any story ever written with her inclusion

- Alpha 55!!!!!!!!! I did miss them. Even if they started the confusing trend of taking MMPR stuff and repainting them gold and black

- I still can’t fucking believe Joe/Nadira is canon. Literally for what reason

- It took me a second to remember that Hyperforce went to the North Pole during the first season and I have to say I laughed imagining newbies picking up this mostly serious and dramatic book just to get to this page

- it’s a shame the answer to this was Eddie dumping this beautiful woman at the alter for Vesper and not Vesper simply adding herself to the marriage

- let her cook honestly

- great character development, everyone! now anyway

- [always sunny theme] the gang gets betrayed. also Marv and Joe are here

- I already made the Emperor Belos joke but now I’m distracted by the fact he’s stealing Drakkon’s half hair/half bald style. It doesn’t look good guys, no matter where you part it!!!!!!

- you know, serious question here. Did they give Marv shit for not getting the Battlizer in Hyperforce??? I thought it was just a Thing That Happened and everyone was like haha cool

- “upgraded Rita Repulsa”

- see even Big Bad Dad thinks this story is rushed

- well at least he’s honest

- I find it funny that they’re pressuring Marv to be the leader just because he’s red when they were mentored by fucking JEN

- it’s a shame Hyperforce is canonically set in 3000s because you know if it wasn’t this would have set off a string of “[random ranger girl] is Chloe’s mom” theories

- I mean she’s right. what hope do we have from a team who couldn’t even get a second season

- idk Shattered Grid got fixed pretty easily. Even the cracks that were supposed to be some huge existential consequence just kinda............were fine

- Funny coincidence how the Hyperforce team goes to recruit the Wild Force team only for them to already be beaten. I feel like this would have worked a little better if they went to the Wild Force team because they were pinging for help, because they genuinely don’t give a reason as to why they go to the Wild Force rangers specifically kjlskdlfksj just based on vibes, I guess

- first of all: going from referring to Spa’ark with he/him to they/them pronouns in the span of a panel makes me feel like the misgendering was an editor mistake, which........come on, guys

- second of all: it’s not a surprise that Taylor is the only one left considering her popularity but lbr her popularity is because she’s basically Wild Force’s version of Jen. Jen, who was a main character in Shattered Grid. sooooooo not helping the “this is just Shattered Grid” allegations

- third of all: IS DRAKKON THE ONLY VILLAIN TO LOOK AT WHAT RITA’S DOING AND GO UHHHH NO THANKS? Spa’ark wanted to FIGHT Dark Specter!!!!! why are they joining him now!!!!!! why must we continue to destroy any of their nuance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t mind them having a body though despite it being a plot point that they're only a spirit/consciousness that exists inside their morpher/zord because I feel that’s easy enough to bullshit an explanation like Rita fixed them through magic or whatever

#text #mmpr comic #mmpr comic spoilers #pr unlimited #hyperforce

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roselightfairy · 23 days ago

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#qui gon you are space google now get used to it#the downsides of force ghost existence#guess this is why obi wan always made sure to keep a greater distance between himself and luke after he died#he knew that if he let luke get used to having him around all the time he'd just do to obi wan exactly what obi wan did to qui gon lmao

thank you so so much @tathrin haha I can always count on you for Excellent Takes. (perhaps this is also the Watsonian reason Qui-Gon never appeared to Luke . . . once he saw that Luke was an even MORE curious mind than Obi-Wan himself had been, he threw his metaphysical hands up in the air and said "this one's all yours!")

However, as an excuse for me to blather on about my thoughts on Force ghosts, here is Qui-Gon (on a different night) insisting that he is not in fact Space Google:

...

“Master, what kind of coding system does a B33 unit use?”

Why in the world do you want to know that?

“There was one in the cantina at Mos Eisley yesterday. I’m curious about whether it was sourced new from somewhere or whether it could have been pieced together with scrap from this planet.”

If I were the ghost of a mechanic, I might have an answer for you.

“Well, can’t you just pop over to a library and find out for me?”

We’ve been over this, Obi-Wan. I can’t just access any information from anywhere in the galaxy for you. The closer I come to a single consciousness, the more limited my power. When we talk like this, I am as limited to place and time as I would be if I were alive with you.

“Right, and this is why you can’t be a ghost spy for Bail’s rebellion and make yourself actually useful.”

Well, that and the fact that he can’t see or hear me.

“Remind me again why I even bother to keep you around?”

I thought it was for the pleasure of my scintillating conversation.

“. . .”

Bored enough to sleep now?

“Not remotely. Fine, then, if you’re limited to your own consciousness, why did Adi and Plo avoid each other for a full year when I was sixteen?”

You remember that?

“It was hard to miss. Everyone in my age group noticed; we could just never get a satisfying explanation for it. Only wild rumor.”

What kinds of rumors?

“Aren’t you supposed to be above curiosity about age-old padawan gossip?”

Aren’t you supposed to be above asking ghosts to confirm it?

“. . . Mission gone wrong. An ill-advised bet. A drunken sexual encounter that both regretted in the morning” –

And these were the bright young minds the Order was training.

“Watch it.”

The truth was nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid. You might remember that Plo’s favorite philosopher was all the rage in the Temple at that time?

“Ellic D’Ley?”

That’s the one. It is perhaps somewhat lesser known that Adi hated his writings and took to avoiding Plo during that time in an effort to escape the unbearable smugness.

“. . .”

Yes?

“A number of Council meetings are making more sense to me now.”

I’m sure they are.

“I didn’t expect that to explain so much. Maybe you still have some things left to teach me after all.”

The liminal embrace of the Force, its eternal lessons on time and space, and the perspective provided by mortal memory . . . all brought to bear in service of your curiosity, my padawan.

“I can hardly help that my master trained me to always ask questions.”

Conversations with Ghosts

(If you had a ghostly companion you could contact anytime, what would you ask him in the middle of the night?)

...

“Master, what was the last line of that poem by Lian Tebas, the one about dropping leaves?”

. . . Obi-Wan, it’s three in the morning.

“And? You don’t sleep.”

You do.

“I’ll sleep better if you remind me of the poem. Otherwise I’ll just have to try to remember it myself and wake up a little more the more frustrated I get. If you’re worried about my sleep, you should answer the question.”

A subject for meditation, maybe. Besides, I’m not a reference terminal. You can’t just ask me any question and expect me to have the answer.

“Are you saying you don’t?”

. . .

“You have all her works memorized, I know you do. Or you did. Has death scrambled your brain? Or did you only memorize them while you were making me read them?”

‘And whisked, as lightly-fallen leaves, downwind.’

“Thank you.”

. . .

“. . . Downwind? No wonder I couldn’t remember it. Doesn’t the line before end with the word mind?”

Yes, it does. I’m impressed you still remember so much. Clearly, all that study paid off.

“I knew I hated it for a reason. It’s all coming back to me now. All that nonsense about the loose grip of the mind” –

As a meditation on the grief of forgetting and learning to let go of even cherished memories. Imperfect rhyme is a literary device for a reason, Padawan. Must we relitigate your studies?

“Since when did you become a literary critic?”

Since you decided it was beneath you.

“Hmph. Leave dead poets to the dead, I suppose.”

. . . Obi-Wan.

“Yes, Master?”

Go to sleep.

“Yes, Master.”

#my fic #star wars #obi wan kenobi #qui-gon jinn

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yanderenightmare · 4 years ago

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Hello, I have been looking at your content and I must say that I really like the way you write and I hope you are doing well.I don't know if your applications are open now but I want to give you an idea, how would the yanders react if their beloved has depressive periods and low self-esteem?It may be a bit of an anguish at first but I would like how they would react, use it on purpose or go soft on their beloved.

yandere ! BNHA headcannons

Support me at KO-FI if you feel like it<3

goodiebag WARNINGS: depression, self-harm, abuse, manipulation, abuse, profanity, amnesia, anxiety, panic-attacks, arson, bipolar disorder, blood, death threats, eating disorder, guilt, kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, mental illness, mind control, paranoia, noncon, dubcon, starvation, suicidal ideation, trauma

BAKUGO KATSUKI - KACHAN

MELANCHOLIA –

She’s always biting her tongue, the inside of her cheek, her lip. So much so, he doesn’t even know what her lip normally looks like without it being bloated and swollen and red from having her teeth sink into to it. He’s okay with her chosen silence as long as she answers when she’s spoken to, which she does, lacking the will to refuse, knowing it will only cost her valuable energy, energy she needs in case Bakugo decides he wants to rip the breath from her lungs while he hunches over her, his hips snapping into her again and again, ramming at a pace so rough she both dreads it and welcomes it, for on the one hand it’s exhausting and she always wakes up with aches in the morning, yet on the other hand he makes her appreciate breathing which is always a nice reminder when she often times wonders what tranquility would be found in not breathing whatsoever.

He doesn’t want to confront her about it, sensing how she might not enjoy confrontation all that much, and not really wanting the whole ordeal to result in making her cry at the mere sound of his voice. He won’t alter the volume or the roughness of his tone, no matter how many times she cringes at how loud he’s being, but he does try being gentle, at least with his criticism. He showers her in compliments, which is a huge contrast to how he would usually handle fixing things. But, he finds using softer methods benefit him as well, loving the blush that adorns her face each time he does so, his own confidence probably boosting more so than hers.

He does nice things, not really knowing what or which way to help. He doesn’t make her do any chores, ignoring the nagging feeling that keeping her busy would probably help more so than having her sit and look cute all day, but… he’s afraid of admitting it, but… he quite likes taking care of her. He quite likes hugging her throughout the night, feeling her small tremoring sobs against him while stroking her back. He likes comforting her on those same nights where she wakes abruptly from some nightmare, stroking glossy diamond tears away from her cheeks, loving her bloated lips and that cute red wet irritation flushed on her nose and cheeks.

The only times he gets upset with her is when she refuses to eat. He tries so hard to make things she might like, but it’s scarce he sees her taking more than a few bites, if she makes a move to eat at all. He doesn’t want to make her cry, despite it being a constant hobby of hers, he doesn’t want to be the reason to her crying, but… he can’t have her starving. He finds the fear-tactic surprisingly effective on someone who spends most their time fantasizing about death. A few sparks in his palms has her all but quaking, scared half-way into catatonia or even comatose, so much so he has to pull her into his lap and spoon-feed her. Not that he minds that either, he comes to enjoy it quite a lot actually. How her small frame melts so perfectly against his chest, legs swung over his lap, head on his shoulder, remnants of her fear-stricken cries still evident as small spontaneous jolts run through her, being slowly comforted away with the same hand that caused the trouble in the first place.

DABI - TODORKI TOUYA

ANXIETY –

He couldn’t be happier with his little ball of blue wrapped up in soft-tinted crushed dreams with a heart made of honeycombs and dandelion-fluff. Whereas his misfortunate lack of happiness stems from a place of violence, where violence breeds violence, she’s nothing but a tender trauma. Such a soft despair, such a sweet despair, such perfection found in something so devastating. It’s artwork really. How she can cry herself to sleep, trapped in his arms, feeling as though she’s dying, yet wake up the next morning all velvety and soft in his arms, her heart finding comfort in what her mind rejects, what her mind fears.

He tries being a source of comfort for the most part, but teasing and haunting and poking fun at her is such a delicious past-time he cannot simply just refrain from. He’ll be a real villain about it at times. Having her as a complete blubbering pathetic hiccupping mess, poking fun at her crybaby-face as he licks the tears from her cheeks and gorges himself in her panic, his fingers dancing small patterns on her stomach as she wiggles beneath him.

She used to be so scared of him. So skittish and paralyzed, cold-sweating and eyes constantly leaking he had to imagine what her eyes would look like without being rimmed with red. She used to shiver and shake and quake and reel in on herself, curl up until her limbs ached from how small she was trying to make herself become, backed up into the corner beneath his shadow, his leather-boots looking like the onset of everything horrific as she coward in front of them. But wild untrusting childlike beings such as her is quick in nature to tether themselves to the first or only source of light. And though the transition was slow, her anxiety soon shifted from being directed at him and soon for him instead.

It was too easy, and it benefitted him so undeservingly as well it was cruel. How he simply took all those fears of hers, all those fears for everything residing in the new foreign room she’d been taken captive in, manipulating them into becoming paranoia for everything found outside the bedroom door instead. He went from being the source of her dread, of her panic, of her misery, of her pitter-patter heart and shattering teeth to her savior. Soothing her in her frenzied quakes as she spluttered on sobs containing what hellish monsters and dangers found outside, begging him to be careful, to come back to her, to stay.

She will hug him close throughout the night, hanging almost like a noose around his neck when he needs to leave in the mornings, tracing his scars with a stream of endless worried thoughts blubbering in her groggy voice. And he’ll humor her worry and tame the oncoming panic-attacks by giving her a little light-show of blue flames in his palm, words of his own coming to assure her how nothing will ever happen to him and how he will never let anything ever happen to her, assuring however many times he has the time for.

She’s too cute it’s unfair. Unfair that small creatures like her exist without anything to protect them from hungry wolves like him. And though he was never the type to fantasize about clingy things, he has to admit… coming home to someone who lunches at him in the most secure yet clumsy and desperate embrace, he feels as though that feeling of coming home is all he’ll ever need in the world, that she’s all he’ll ever need.

SHIGARAKI TOMURA

INSOMNIA –

It’s nice. He knows it shouldn’t be the word he describes it with, but… that’s what it is. It’s nice. It’s nice to stay up with someone who expels the same type of energy as him, and not to mention the same amount of energy as him, or… lack of thereof. It’s nice living off of fumes together. It’s nice slipping to and from consciousness and how it almost turns into a game of who can survive the longest before collapsing, with the other shortly following, too tired to even bask in their victory.

It’s nice irritating over the same sharp sounds that attack their sensitive ears, not at all like the familiar sound of soft clicks of the controller in their hands. It’s nice communicating almost purely through mellow moans and groans and croaks, always understanding what the other is emitting despite it being but shapeless sounds.

It’s nice finding agreement in how the lights should always stay off, how it’s turned into some religious rule never meant to be crossed. It’s nice annoying over the same crisp bright light of the sun that violate their eyes those times they forget to shut the blinds before passing out after having counted stars and eating in the dead silence of night like nocturnal beings ignoring the light of day as though it were the plague. It’s nice how they can both find comfort in the glow of the moonlight or computer screen, leaching off of the energy like flies.

He’s found kinship in her presence, and despite it merely being himself and her in the darkness of his room, with flying specs of dust decorating the air and their computers the only windows to the world beyond their four walls, he feels as though the whole universe is looking at him when the softness of her glinting, beaming, sparkling eyes set their gaze and lock with his. It’s strange, but he always found angel-bright smiles and supersonic eyes to be too intrusive and annoying and scary to stand before, whereas her sunken dark eyes, ringed with shades of lilac contrasting her otherwise pale porcelain skin, kept almost albino in the darkness of his room… she couldn’t be more perfect.

Come to think of it, it’s perfection. Her in all her sleep-deprived glory, all her drowsy silliness, her sloppy harsh movements, tripping and stumbling with her droopy-eyes, in her soft giggling fits, where she’ll catch her stupidity just a moment too late and roll around on the bed, trying to shrug off Tomura’s teasing judgement as he pokes fun at her idiocy. Giving up on forming complete sentences as she almost always ends up toppling over her own words, settling for whining or sighing as she turns her head to bury it in his chest.

Utter perfection. Never bothering to get dressed, walking about like a little tease in only underwear and Tomura’s ill-fitted hoodie, hair pulled up into a messy-bun too messy, always defeating the purpose of keeping her hair from out of her face. Her unstable movements, disconnected to the ground as though she’s floating. Too grabbable and easily defeated in her weariness when being pulled into his lap, simply humming and moaning in response as he plants soft kisses down her neck, his fingers coming to destroy whatever’s in the way of him and her body.

HITOSHI SHINSO

HYPERSOMNIA –

She sleeps so soundly, like a little couch-kitten. All soft and cute, playing in her dreams. She’ll sleep whole entire days, only opening her eyes in small flutters every now and again and moaning ever so softly once he wakes her, though quickly scrunching her nose and twisting to fall asleep again. Her drowsiness rendering her pride invalid, causing her to pull at him to better comfort herself against his body, whining when he shifts, his warm presence leaving the bed when he needs to go to work. Her little unconscious protest making his heart twist in his chest, tempted to stay in bed with her all day long, yet comforting himself with the fact that he’ll probably come home to find her in the exact same position.

She’s so cute. She’ll curl and stretch, resting anywhere she finds comfortable: in bed, in the sofa, in the armchair, on his chest, his shoulder, his lap. Adorable with her little snores, all knotted up, remnants of her dreams spilling out from her sleep and coming to life in her limbs as she kicks and shakes her head, delving further into the pillow and twisting intricately in about the blanket. Eyelashes fluttering, eyes skittering beneath her puffy eyelids, caught up in whatever hurricane her mind has conjured up.

She seemed unfazed once she woke up in his room for the first time, and even then, she only gave him enough time to explain himself before nodding with heavy eyelids, laying her drowsy head back on the pillow. The situation dawning on her gradually over the first month, and if whether she was startled or angry, he couldn’t tell. If anything, sept for sleepy, he’d say she seemed confused, but alongside the confusion was the look that told him she couldn’t find the energy in herself to think too much about it without her fuzzy head hurting. Settling for eating breakfast with him in the mornings, and even thanking him on those occasion where she would forget the circumstances that led her to live there.

She doesn’t struggle when he pulls her limp body close to his own in the dead of night after he’s done for the day. He’s only mildly concerned, but it’s not his affection that shakes her from her sleep. He’s a selfish person, and he’s not one to hide those ugly aspects of himself. He’s selfish, greedy, controlling. He has to use his quirk on her sometimes… often times. Though she’s cute when she’s sleeping, he wants to do more than just watch her. He wants words, conversation, he wants to know what’s going on in that dark dreary head of hers, he wants to know what eerie things she’s been dreaming about, where she escapes to when her eyes slide close.

What more: he wants those eyes on him, those puffy, sleepy beautiful doe-eyes. He wants her to pay attention as he touches her skin and not simply to moan in response to it, he wants her to hang onto every single moment his skin touches hers. Telling her to focus reaches a long way. Those otherwise sleepy doe-eyes widening in such moon-bright curiosity, slaving at the hands of his quirk. Her otherwise limp and soft body shaking under his overwhelming touch, goosebumps springing to the surface under his tongue, a wicked glint evident in his lilac eyes.

TAKAMI KEIGO - HAWKS

BIPOLAR –

She’s fragile on most days. Whether that fragility is in the shape of a daisy or a bomb is impossible to say until she either falls apart or blows up. It’s all rather uncertain, sporadic, spontaneous, where he’s given only a few signs where which he can predict what state of mind she’s in and how stable that structure is.

Most things depend on sleep, and upholding a balanced sleep-pattern has become one of the most important things in Keigo’s life after having taken his little darling. But, she manages to slip past his schedules more times than he would like to admit. When she refuses to go to sleep, his mind drifts to all the fun things they can do if they weren’t sleeping, and when she’s sound asleep and drowsing far beyond what time she should have woken up, he can’t find it in himself to wake her, not when he is the reason as to why she was so spent and sore and exhausted from the events and methods he used to make her fall asleep in the first place.

On little sleep one of two things can happen. She can either have the energy of a hummingbird or be tired to the point she almost looks sickly. On her lack-of-sleep-high she’s confident, cocky more so than Keigo, where she’ll test her luck on how far Keigo’s willing to bend his rules when she misbehaves, calling him all types of names, laughing in his face when he snaps and cackling even harder even madder when he decides to punish her, as though it’s all a game to quench her boredom.

With the absence of sleep causing her exhaustion she becomes irritated, seething with boiling rage, red in annoyance, whatever energy she has left focused on making her discomfort known as she scowls at him each time he smiles too loudly, but being too drained to physically act on her frustration or to even make up a snide comment without evoking a headache, left to simply snarl. He thinks it’s cute, where he knows well enough that if he pushes her limits too far she might just break. Break, and therefore let him gather her up into his arms and hush and tut at her to stop crying while he strokes her back, feeling her tremble with unparalleled frustration weighing down on her shoulders.

Then there are the days she sleeps too much. The same options are present here too. She’s either too energetic or too well rested. Either black or white. No grey. But with too much sleep she isn’t ever hostile, but still wild. Wild and enthusiastic and self-destructive and prop-full of ideas and insane in her passion. She’ll be unable to focus on anything, she’ll forget things seconds after they’ve been said or done, but… she’ll laugh and she’ll smile, and it won’t be one of those haughty nasty smiles she gives him when she’s feeling spiteful, but genuine in its playfulness or even bliss.

Then on other days sleeping half the day only results in her being even more drowsed out, yet accompanying her exhaustion isn’t irritation, but soft-tinted melancholia, where all she does is stay wrapped up in her blanket, quiet and still, silent tears dripping down her cheeks as she focusses on how hollow her chest is, as though caving in on itself, where she’ll fall all limp and snuggly in Keigo’s embrace, humming appreciatively as he wraps her up in his wings. All the while a treacherous smile of satisfaction on his face.

MIDORIYA IZUKU - DEKU

DESPOND –

When Izuku chose his darling it was done without compromise, without fault, it was done with perfection. Meaning, he fell for all of her, invested in all of her, determined to preserve all of her. Even her inexplainable unfounded absurd plethora of self-doubt that make her delirious and hopeless with anxiety and guilt. He let himself fall hungrily in love with her little terror-wide heart. He fell viciously in love with how desperate in need of him to come help ground her she was.

It was as though she’s made for him, he would argue. It was as though he’s made for her. Some breeds of people are just too vulnerable to take proper care of themselves. Some people just aren’t meant to take care of themselves. Whereas others are made to help, other people need to help.

Emotions are abstract fundamental tools meant to be used. Lesser minds might look down on his methods, yet Izuku came to understand quite early in life that things such as morals are chains meant to keep you from achieving your goal. He has no quarrels with using and abusing those tools presented to him, where her irrational feelings of doubt, hopelessness and worthlessness are a delicious opportunity to achieve his goal. Besides, her emotions are too easily abused and give such great unshakable responses, and even though he doesn’t want to tamper too much with her instability… they’re just too in-reach for him to ignore, too tempting for him to stay away.

The feeling of responsibility sits like an extra organ inside him, where his toes curl each time he sees her large doe-eyes look at him as though he were the sun, as though her whole life revolves around him. She’s just so dependent on him, so in need of his guidance and advise and praise, where he’s afraid she might just drown in her own guilt if she senses she’s displeased him. She makes sure she wears what he likes, has her hair the way he likes, letting him play with her like putty in his hands if he asks it of her. How can he be expected to not exploit what is so clearly offered?

Besides, he spoils her as well. He returns the favor so to speak, even though he knows she has given herself no choice but to worship him in her mindset of inadequacy. She’s so sweet he nearly feels undeserving, because she’ll blush so preciously when he compliments her, bashful and adorable and too good to be true, he wonders how such a creature can ever feel like less. He adores her, yet that doesn’t stop him from finding such satisfying bliss in the fact that he’s infinitely stronger and faster and not to mention smarter. Whereas she’s gullible and too eager to please, another attributing factor as to why he loves her, despite it is also being the cause of her demise, or maybe even because of it

The truth is she’s lucky that she belongs to him. Lucky that he won’t ever let anything happen to her, no matter if she’s the source of her own harm. She’s lucky to have him to anchor herself to as so to avoid floating away in her hopelessness. This is safer for her. Despite him sticking his bloodstained inky fingers and twisting her heart in his deadlock of a fist, she’s safe, safer than she could or would ever be on her own.

CHISAKI KAI - OVERHAUL

AMNESIA –

It’s cute. He won’t deny that it’s cute, because it is. It’s adorable and unbelievable and annoying all the same. She’ll forget the rules, she’ll wander too far from her confines, not greeting him at the door, not kissing him on que, leave questions unanswered despite him having told her to always answer him when she’s spoken to, all things he feels he’s made blatantly clear through threats and countless reminders. But, not only will she forget his rules, but basic living necessities, she’ll forget to eat and drink, forget to get dressed, forget where she is.

She’ll say the strangest things sometimes. Mild and mellow passionate thoughts regarding the clouds and stars and moon and gods and how pretty his snake-eyes are, like great big lakes of molten gold. It’s strange but he finds such great comfort in her little philosophical blubbering, her soft voice kissing his ears like gospel. It’s a tender type of relief or resolution found in listening to nonsense as opposed to the serious matters he has to deal with in his position in the underworld, her view of the world somehow painting everything, even the ugly and the dangerous, in beauty.

Sometimes she’ll drift a bit too far away though. She’ll daydream more than sleep, absentminded when he’s speaking to her, unable to focus on him or anything for more than a few minutes at best. All dizzy and fuzzy, as though she’s just woken from some dream or as if she’s always dreaming. Irritation festers in his chest when she doesn’t answer, but as she turns her head, expression all soft and oblivious, his chest caving in at the sight of those doe-eyes, all anger simmering into nothing, rendering his annoyance nonexistent, replaced by a sense of hopeless forgiveness and somehow appreciation.

When it comes to her for once actually remembering what she’s supposed to do she’ll weigh each task as though one wrong decision would cost her life. Greeting him at the door in nothing but underwear, already having failed at picking out an outfit and resorting to wearing the lingerie Kai picked and laid out for her on the bed in the morning. The simple task suddenly becoming a battle where she’ll spend much too much time deciding whether to take his jacket first or give him a kiss or welcome him home. Too many decisions with too faulty statistics and unsure outcomes she ends up merely standing there doing nothing but hold her head in her hands and whimper slightly at all the noise that suddenly crowded her head, tears already threatening to fall as she stands before him, all guilt-ridden and trembling.

He can be patient as long as he knows she isn’t disobeying him on purpose, especially when he sees how guilty and how terribly sorry she is each time she fails on acting out simple tasks such as those he gives her. She’ll cry and apologize for the mere act of breathing on some days where she’s extra fragile, where she seeks nothing but his praise, his comfort, his hand stroking through her hair as she sleeps restlessly in her sobs on his chest, unaware of the mild smile of satisfaction and endearment displayed on his face.

TODOROKI SHOTO

SELF-CONSCIOUS -

She’s always hiding. Like a little mouse, she’s always squeaking and squealing and hiding. Hiding her face, burying it in the pillow when he compliments her gorgeous eyes, begging him to stop, small timid hands pushing ever so slightly at him. Hiding her chest, her nipples, when he admires them, his hands playing with the soft and supple flesh, whimpering as she tries to twist away. Her knees trying their best to wrench shut, to hide and protect what sensitivity find between them from Shoto’s hungry fingers and tongue.

She’s always hiding… but he likes to hunt anyway. If she drapes herself in pitch-black hoodies he’ll gladly rip them off, or scorch them off and expose her delicious artful body. If she refuses to leave the bed he’ll gladly attack her where she’s sleeping. She’s always hiding, but she quickly comes to understand that there will be no hiding from him.

He doesn’t understand why she would ever want to hide divinity, and therefor doesn’t respect the wish. Having made it his mission to expose every little piece of her, licking up long lines of bumpy purple and white scars, sucking and biting at those pointy cherry nipples strutting at the coolness of his breath, kissing those plump lips of hers despite her cringing to cover herself up in thousand layers of clothes, dark clothes, where only the very least of her skin is remaining on display. He won’t have it.

He has to tie her up on most occasions where she’s too difficult and shy to listen and let him play with her beauty. He’ll have to tie her up like a starfish on the bed, limbs spread in each direction, scars running along them, quite like the ones he receives in battle, only precise and matching and purposeful, his hands coming to touch them in reverence, worshipping every little altercation she’s added to her skin, further pushing its ever-changing perfection, watching as she hopelessly struggles to hide herself, yet the both of them knowing how she’s fully his.

He can’t allow her hurting herself anymore though, not with the fear that she one day might slip up and kill herself just a little bit too much, but he’s happy to help her through the tools of fire and ice. Frostbite flowers look even more as though they belong on her body, as well as blotches of burns, his markings, his teeth. He’ll never forget the moan he received on his first indulgence branding her body with his elements, how she purred in gratitude, small blissful squeals and mewls following, further egging him on.

Once she grew more comfortable with his hands and his stare… or rather… once the need for his hands outgrew her discomfort, she became somewhat addicted. And now, she can be wild in her cravings on some days, demanding it of him, threatening him, fighting him. She’ll bite and claw, begging for him to retaliate, longing for him to push her into the bedsheets and teach her what it’s like to feel alive by teasing her with the promise of death.

Without him she’s left to pick at scabs, counting the seconds until his return. She’ll pull at her hair until her scalp is screaming. She’ll ball her fists, creating those blood-red crescent moons in her palms, biting her nails until they bleed and then some. Then bask in relief upon his return.

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narukoibito · 4 years ago

Note

“Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Am I Your Lockscreen?

Summary: Harry misplaces his phone.

AO3 | FF.net

Note: This took absolutely forever (months!), but here it finally is. Thanks for the ridiculous prompt Anon. This is complete, unadulterated fluff. It’s ridiculous, and I just can't. Haha, I hope you enjoy!

Harry was in the middle of stifling a yawn when he heard the rumbling downstairs.

Must be Fred and George, he thought, stretching his arms over his head. He let them fall back on the cot, with a content, food coma induced sigh. He was thinking about taking a little kip when Ron stirred on the bed beside him.

“Sounds like Ginny’s home early,” Ron grumbled.

“Ginny’s home?” Harry perked up, only to cough self-consciously at the strange look Ron gave him. Right, best mate’s little sister, he reminded himself. Except she was so much more than that. As if on cue, he heard the tinkling of her laughter below.

“Oh, I guess that’s nice,” Harry said casually, leaning back into the cot and pretending to go back to napping.

After a moment, Harry sneaked a peek. Ron had returned to fiddling with his phone. Texting Hermione probably.

Good save, Potter.

Unable to stop himself, Harry reached into his pocket to protectively touch his phone. Only to come back empty-handed.

His eyes popped open.

He straightened and immediately began to pat the blankets around him, his hands searching with a growing franticness.

“Mate?” Ron asked.

“Have you seen my phone?” Harry looked under his pillow and the sheets, on the verge of panic. He always, always kept his phone with him, especially —

“Er, no?” Ron sat up, confused. “Let me call you.”

Harry waited with bated breath as Ron dialed his number. He glared at the rumpled sheets pooled around him, willing them to start ringing.

Finally, there came his tell-tale ring! Only it was…

Shite. Shite, shite, shite!

It had been a moment of weakness. At her last football game, he had snapped a photo right when she’d made the winning shot. Then, like the idiot he was, couldn’t resist saving it as his lockscreen.

“Harry?” He heard Ron’s cry of surprise behind him as he moved, wrenching open the door. He bolted down the stairs, taking two, then three steps at a time, racing toward the ringing.

Just as he rounded the corner to the kitchen, Harry saw Ginny. Even in the midst of his panic, he couldn’t stop the way his stomach swooped at the sight of her standing there in her football training kit, with her long hair tumbling over her shoulders, her freckled skin that glowed, her pale fingers that he longed to hold.

And then, as if in slow motion, he watched as those very fingers reached toward the dining room table.

Fuck.

“Whose phone—?”

“Argh!” Without thinking, Harry launched himself into the air.

His fingers triumphantly curled over the phone.

Sweet relief coursed through him as an invisible audience cheered him in his head. Safe! He was safe!

Only of course his foot caught on something, and Harry went tumbling headfirst onto the floor. All those years of football training meant he automatically rolled, protecting his head, even as he crashed against the cupboards.

“Harry! Are you okay?”

He blinked away the spots in his eyes to see Ginny looking down at him, her brown eyes bright with concern. She leaned in, her face tantalizingly close.

“Fine. I’m fine,” he croaked, his face flooding with color and not only because he was upside down.

And he was fine, despite the spinning room, because Ginny was here, smiling down at him. The fluttering in his chest mixed with the squeeze of relief that she wasn’t looking down at him in disgust or, worse, pity at having uncovered his secret.

“I see you haven’t lost your flair for dramatics,” she said wryly.

“Constant vigilance,” Harry said, pleased when she laughed at the reference to that ridiculous counselor from that summer camp their parents had enrolled them in as teens. Counselor Moody used to do all sorts of mad things to scare them, like popping out of the bushes. Harry and Ginny used to catch each other’s eyes and laugh about it back when she was nothing more than his best mate’s little sister.

Harry’s eyes couldn’t help but wander from her face, only to flush and snap his eyes upward. She certainly wasn’t so little anymore.

“Let’s get you right-side up, and then maybe you can explain why you were pulling a Moody.”

His stomach curled into knots at her proximity as she helped him. He tried to think of something charming to say, which was hard when she was dusting him off and unintentionally sending goosebumps up his arm.

“I was testing your reflexes,” Harry blurted. “I’m still faster than you.”

“Oh, like that really counts when you suddenly shout and fling yourself at me.”

Why was it that the challenging look on Ginny’s face only made his heart skip a beat?

“Element of surprise.” He reached up to adjust his crooked glasses, something tickling in the back of his mind like he was forgetting something. Focusing was difficult with the intoxicating scent of flowers short-circuiting his brain.

“Well, for all your bluster…” With a mischievous glint in her eye, Ginny triumphantly raised his phone screen to his line of sight. “You still lose.”

Harry’s heart dropped to the floor. His eyes darted from the phone to her face and back again. He made a wild swipe for it, but Ginny was prepared.

“Whose call were you so eager to answer, hmm?” she taunted as she ducked into the family room.

“No, Ginny!” He followed her frantically, nearly knocking over a vase. “Come on, don’t—!”

“Not Cho, I hope?” She ran around the couch, strategically placing it between them. Her hand waved the phone tauntingly at him.

“No,” Harry said, slowly drawing nearer, adrenaline drumming in his ears. He frantically looked for an opening. “Cho and I aren’t a thing anymore.”

“Then it’s no problem if I check, is it?” Ginny turned the phone toward her, eyes slowing lowering — with his heart lodged in his throat, Harry lunged.

The two of them tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs.

Harry groaned at the sting from where his head had connected with the floor. Somehow, in the chaos, he had managed to be on the bottom, which was good because Ginny hadn’t felt the brunt of the fall. But as the pain began to recede, he was suddenly very much aware of the soft curves pressing into him, her legs tangled up with his. She moved, wiggling enough to make him yelp.

Oh God, was this it? The only time he would ever get this close?

How pathetic could he get?

“Harry?”

He winced and waited for her to punch him and call him a pervert or something. When it didn’t come, he dared to open a tentative eye. Ginny had lifted herself up, hovering above him, her fiery red hair a curtain around them. Unable to stop himself, he stared up at her, bewitched by her freckles up close, the growing flush on her cheeks that reminded him of a sunset.

“Yeah?” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Am I your lockscreen?”

Harry swallowed hard, his chest twisting painfully. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Her lips quirked upward. “Planned on keeping it a secret for life?”

“Worth a shot,” he said dryly, even though his pulse was racing. She was smiling — could that possibly mean…?

“Yes, well. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, what are you going to do about it?” Her eyes flashed.

His traitorous hand reached up, lightly brushing her hair back. As his fingers skimmed her cheeks, she released an unsteady breath that whispered against his face. Ginny, his best mate’s little sister, his brilliant friend who could kick his arse, who made him laugh until his cheeks hurt.

“Ginny,” he said, barely able to think over the hammering in his heart, trying to form the words he had been reciting endlessly ever since she and Dean split up. “Will you be my lockscreen?”

Wait. Did he just…?

Mortification surged inside him. Where was a hole to bury himself in when he needed it? He would never be able to show his face around the Weasleys again — how was he going to explain that to Ron? He’d go abroad, Scotland maybe, explore castles or woods, anywhere really, just somewhere far, far away.

A peal of laughter tore him from his runaway thoughts. Ginny gave him such a bright smile, it was hard to look at her straight on. She was leaning closer, her eyes blazing. “Only if you’ll be mine.”

“Fair is fair,” he said, holding her gaze for what seemed like an impossible time, the tension between them making his chest want to burst, and then suddenly they were kissing.

He had imagined this moment many times in the past few months since his feelings had all but clobbered him over the head when he and Ron bumped into Ginny and Dean snogging under the bleachers. He’d replaced Dean with himself, imagined his hands around her waist, his lips fused with hers.

But this — this was so much better than anything he could have imagined. All conscious thoughts were obliterated by a warm sunshine that effused his every nerve.

“Harry,” Ginny breathed heavily when they finally broke apart. The smile she was giving him made him smile what was surely the soppiest smile in existence. “That was…”

“Lockscreen worthy?” he asked like an idiot.

She chuckled, her body shifting against him, turning that sunshine inside him to molten heat. “Might need to double check.”

“Happy to oblige,” he said, as she leaned down and kissed him again. He ached to be closer, his hand tangling into her soft hair, and she pressed closer as if also driven by the same reckless desire. He was so lost in her, he only barely registered the distant noise that was getting closer.

“Where’d you go, Har— oh my God!” Ron’s cry pierced through Harry’s hazy brain. “Get off my sister!”

Fear spiked through Harry. He looked up at his best mate (who was hopefully still his best mate), who looked as if he had been clubbed on the head.

“He can’t get off me, I’m on him!” Ginny replied unhelpfully.

“Oh then… Get off my best mate!”

Ron grabbed her ankles and started pulling her off of Harry, but Ginny, in a fit of rebelliousness, clung onto Harry harder.

Over their bickering about “bro code” and “we don’t need your permission” and “took you both long enough, but no snogging in the family room,” Harry let his head fall back with a thunk against the floor.

Nevermind – Scotland it was.

#i wrote a thing #fluff and humor #lol wth it's fluff #i didn't know what to do with myself with all this fluff #but have a sweet macaroon #Harry Potter #Ginny Weasley #Harry/Ginny #Hinny #anonymous #prompt #this took forever #but i do intend to get to all the prompts #one day #hope you still enjoy it after all this time #muggle au #but that should be obvious #they have phones lol

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meear · 4 years ago

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HOW is reibert still not canon (long post oops)

1. there was literally no reason for reiner to look this salty. is this how y’all look when you tease a friend about their crush???

2. we KNOW yumihisu is the one ship confirmed canon af and this whole arc they’ve been trying to protect the other what’s not clicking

3. BRUH

4. you can’t possibly think Reiner was being subtle in any way. it’s him. he’s talking about himself because he is the CEO of projecting onto others and we know that

5. projecting onto Annie again

how many times did Bertholdt rush to save Reiner from a life-or-death situation. hint : a lot

the fact that reiner both consciously and unconsciously called for him haha anyway

6. you’re all aware by now but if Ymir doesn’t like men and she’s always with Historia it doesn’t take a genius to understand how she and Reiner parallel each other

7. this line exists but go off I guess

(the look he gives her though)

he’s literally only thinking of Bertholdt. funny how he later worries about not being able to protect him against the titans when they had already lost Eren huh

8. by the way, right after Reiner says that about Ymir, Bertholdt worries about him dissociating again.

it’s interesting how Bertholdt immediately associates Reiner’s crush on Krista with Reiner not being himself and Reiner knows it perfectly. it literally can’t be more obvious, otherwise it doesn’t make sense for Reiner to say “I’m a warrior, so I’m not interested in Krista because she’s cute”. how out of the blue is that??? people still think Reiner is bi. he isn’t.

Bertholdt really isn’t amused by Reiner’s bullshit and honestly same

9. remember the rushing in to save Reiner thing ? and how “if you lose you die, if you win you live” is a motto in this series?

mikasa swears to win for Eren’s sake

historia literally tells ymir they’re going to live for each other

“he has his own reason why he can’t lose” lmao so... Reiner is his reason to win?to live????? just say you’re in love and go

10. remember how RB’s mission would have succeeded if only Ymir hadn’t suddenly stopped everything to go back for Historia? how that gave the survey corps the time they needed, and how RB basically helped the SC??

Bertholdt stopped for Reiner and gave the SC the time they needed to get away from the explosion. if he hadn’t done that, he definitely would’ve killed them all

Bertholdt is a hypocrite lmao

11. nothing to see here just dudes and gals crying for their bros and pals

12. we know Bertholdt is a much more capable warrior than Reiner and that he mastered the colossal titan immediately. there is no way Reiner would’ve been able to fight Mikasa like Bertholdt did. Isayama said that Bertholdt “could do anything physically”. sure, Reiner ranked above Bertholdt and Annie during training, but when you look at their childhood, i think both of them could’ve surpassed Reiner if they had been 100% serious. this is just my interpretation though, it’s also possible that Bertholdt’s lack of initiative and Annie’s unability to work with others hurt their grade. i think hand-to-hand combat (Reiner’s weakness) wasn’t graded either

at the very least Isayama’s literally saying that Bertholdt would let Reiner win if they fought

wild how reibert keeps on paralleling characters with confirmed romantic feelings

(Ymir slacked off on purpose too)

+ Bertholdt waiting for Reiner as they race

13. Ymir and Bertholdt are two tall dark-haired shifters who are both really tired of their smaller blonde partner retreating into their fake persona out of a desire to be liked what is n o t c l i c k i n g this is so specific

14. reiner’s main reason for thinking Bertholdt likes Annie is that he stares at her and I mean sure

look I’m not putting every instance of RB doing exactly that because sometimes it’s just because the other happens to be talking lmao but these?? no explanation

bruh you can HEAR the stare

this one is especially glaring since Annie is also in the picture so why didn’t he just draw Bertholdt looking at her??? guess we’ll never know

Reiner has NO excuse for staring at Bertholdt here I’m sorry literally everyone is looking at Sasha and Connie teasing Annie. Bertholdt isn’t doing anything

15. Bertholdt’s development after accepting Reiner’s possible death and deciding to end it all is SO similar to Mikasa after Eren’s death in Trost. they’re both moving in this trance-like state before repeating that the world is cruel, but it’s really interesting because the events are in reverse order for Bertholdt. so it’s more like a mirror. i’ve tried to represent it lmao i hope it’s readable

there’s the same onomatopoeia for the heartbeat, and Bertholdt and Mikasa were making similar expressions. even if isayama’s drawings weren’t as good in the first chapters, you can see that Mikasa has that same blank, wide stare when approaching Eren (it’s chapter 9)

both seem to become another person as they move, though Bertholdt is much calmer than Mikasa (which makes sense if their “normal” personality has switched I guess since Bertholdt is usually the nervous one). He sees everything around him perfectly, but Mikasa runs out of gas because she wasn’t paying attention to anything anymore

see it’s funny because Mikasa literally loves Eren

only difference is after falling, Mikasa says the world is beautiful as well, which makes the omission in Bertholdt’s case (as he rises) obvious

anyway might as well put those too I guess, though i wouldn’t consider them direct parallels but we’ve made it this far lmao

it reminded me of Historia after losing Ymir and Reiner after coming back alone :

(btw the music when Historia cradles Ymir in her arms after she fought as a titan is also called Her heart still beating on Youtube, but I don’t know where that comes from because the actual title is AOTs2M他3... probably just a fan name, but that’s a cool coincidence)

16. this post i made the other day still not over it

17. if reibert not canon then why literal actual canon????

#no but seriously bertholdt and mikasa literally both embraced reiner and eren's body as they realised their heart was still beating #the fuck more do you want #reibert #yumihisu #eremika

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malucy31 · 3 years ago

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Time is On Our Side

Alec is stuck on a mission in India in the 18th century and he misses Magnus. One day, he wakes up somewhere that feels and smells like home.

Chapter 1/3 - Moon troubles

Read on ao3

In a state of semi-consciousness, Alec senses Magnus hovering somewhere over him, his soothing words, soothing voice, familiar presence. When he manages to blink his eyes open, it’s only for a second.

The light is too harsh.

“Magnus…” his voice trails off on its own. He missed him so much.

“Hello, there. You slept all morning, I was starting to fear you wouldn’t wake up at all.”

“The mission, it – ”

“Shh, you’ve been injured, try not to talk.”

“Thought it’d never end…”

“It’s over now. You’re safe here.”

Alec smiles at these words, letting his muscles relax into Magnus’s magic. If he opened his eyes, he knows he would see his lovely husband weaving blue tendrils of magic like strings of air and atoms. But his eyelids are too heavy, and everything is so peaceful.

Two weeks.

Those missions are always supposed to last two weeks, but they never do. Faint recollections of a missed new moon and a missed opportunity to go home cross his mind.

How long has it been? A month? A month and a half?

Alec can’t focus. He has missed Magnus so much, has craved being in his arms, hearing his voice. It has just been too long.

Above him, Magnus says things, but Alec’s brain only registers a few words of reassurance, maybe replies to his unconscious ramblings. He doesn’t even know what he is saying.

Disappointment settles when the soft buzzing of Magnus’s magic leaves his skin. He realizes he must be pouting because the musical laughter he loves so much answers him.

“Try to rest. I’ll be in the next room if you need me, okay?”

Alec pictures himself nodding but has no idea if his head follows. After that, everything fades.

Magnus’s magic must have been what kept him awake because when he regains consciousness, it’s to an evening light filtering through half-closed shutters.

The feelings he had earlier are still floating at the edge of his memory. Magnus’s magic is there too, purring underneath his skin like it has found a home there. As always, Alec opens himself up to the feelings, letting it drizzle, letting it settle in every numb place.

Peacefulness only lasts a few seconds though. The sheets under his palms are rougher than usual. It’s not the silk he was expecting to find. These remind him more of the ones he had at the Institute. More than a bit confused, he sits up, trying not to pay too much attention to his still painful right arm.

Something as simple as it is terrifying grows in his stomach as he takes in his surroundings.

He is neither in their bedroom, nor at the Institute.

In fact, Alec has no idea where he is. It feels like home, but it isn’t. Between the echoes of a familiar magic lovingly coiling up around his bones and the scent of sandalwood coming from the other side of the door, Alec could swear he is at their loft, just like he could swear that Magnus is brewing a batch of his sandalwood shampoo.

Did Magnus add a room to the loft while he was away?

It shouldn’t be this difficult to remember, but everything is blank. It’s only when he sits at the edge of the bed and sees his reflection in the mirror that his brain finally catches up with the situation.

This isn’t his face, he is glamoured as a Mundane.

And he isn’t home because the mission isn’t over yet.

He is still in India in the 18th century…

Great.

Alec heaves a long sigh and falls back on the mattress, wincing as the room spins around him. He was so sure he was home, so sure that this whole nightmare was finally over. But no. The demon they had to kill was harder to find, making them miss the new moon, miss the ritual and forcing them to wait another month in a place and time they were never supposed to be.

So no, he isn’t home. Far from it.

His memories are coming back, but what drove him here is still a mystery. What happened?

It was Magnus with him earlier, and it’s him in the next room. That’s a certainty.

Everything starts spinning again, and Alec has to close his eyes.

What did he tell him? Not too much hopefully, nothing that can’t be put under the account of being injured and groggy, right? How long was he unconscious? Did he miss the new moon again? The thought makes him sit back up, swallowing a moan because his right arm is really hurting.

He can’t wait another month here.

He can’t.

He needs to go home, he needs Magnus, his Magnus. He is sick of falling asleep in beds that are too small, too cold, and too hard. Sick of waking up and having quick breakfasts amongst the other Shadowhunters like he used to do when everything inside of him felt wrong. He wants his life back. Now.

Jace would tell him to stop overreacting, but he doesn’t know what a life with Magnus is. He doesn’t know that nothing compares to this life they are building year after year. Jace doesn’t know, he can’t.

Tears start prickling at the corner of his eyes. Alec is just so tired… It almost makes him regret this blissed state of half-consciousness from earlier where everything felt like a dream.

In the next room, he hears Magnus make a contented noise, humming in approval and commenting to himself like he often does when he tries something new in his apothecary or in the kitchen. Without realizing it, Alec stands up, feeling much lighter. Quiet and calm are replacing the spiraling storm inside his head. There’s nothing like Magnus being happy to make him forget about everything wrong in the world.

It pains him to think he should escape through the window. He has no idea how he ended up here, at Magnus’s or what he told him. It would be safer to escape.

But on the other hand, isn’t that exactly why Magnus didn’t travel with him? Or why he made sure to add a protection spell to Alec’s glamor? They all knew this could happen. This Magnus won’t be able to detect his glamor, his Magnus won’t arrive to save him… There really isn’t any danger, is there?

Before he can make a decision, Alec is at the door, already hearing his siblings’ snigger at their lovesick brother. He just… A month and a half is too long. He misses him too much.

It’s impossible to hold back his smile and sudden yearning when he opens the door. It’s the apothecary. The exact replica of the one Alec knows so well by now. He doesn’t have time to observe the details because Magnus is already meeting his stare.

“There’s our mysterious and reckless traveler! How do you feel?”

“Better, thanks.”

“Is it still hurting?” Magnus asks, pointing to Alec’s right arm as he absently rubs it.

The scent of sandalwood and home is so overwhelming that Alec is barely aware of his own answer, or of the fact that Magnus is approaching.

With an elegant movement, he lets a little of his magic rain over Alec’s arm. As it usually does, it curls up around him with a tenderness that leaves him speechless. It makes this Magnus’s face soften, just like it does with his Magnus.

I missed this. I missed you, he wants to say and has to bite his tongue to refrain.

Euphoria fades abruptly when he realizes that this is the second time Magnus has used his magic on him without trying to hide it. Magnus, who isn’t supposed to know him or know that he is part of the Shadow World.

If he is acting like this, it means Alec did or said something he shouldn’t have.

What did he do? How much did he reveal while he was unconscious? Did he doom them forever? Will he come back to an empty loft? To a life where he doesn’t know Magnus at all?

Maybe he should have escaped through the window after all. He is getting nauseous. His mind sinks into bottomless spirals and the room spins again. It’s too late to play dumb, to withdraw his arm and look scandalized, asking things like What kind of witchcraft is this? It’s not like Alec has ever learned how to lie properly anyway.

Magnus must feel his sudden distress because he gently leads him back to a chair, “There, everything’s alright. Better?”

Alec can’t even nod.

As for Magnus, he is smirking, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Don’t worry, mysterious traveler, I don’t know a thing about you.”

Apparently, glamor or not, Magnus can still read him like an open book. Alec doesn’t know if it should make him scared or make him fall in love a little more. Maybe both. Definitively the latter.

“Good,” Alec can’t help replying and regretting it immediately because the amusement on Magnus’s features fades away. He knows his husband enough to know that this mysterious traveler must intrigue him. While healing him, he probably felt a lingering taste of magic, of his own magic without really understanding it.

“Come with me,” he eventually says. “You should eat something.”

Magnus’s kitchen makes Alec smile too.

Once, Magnus told him he used several decades of his life to perfect his cooking skills, even owned a restaurant. Something fancy and prestigious that still exists, where he took Alec for their tenth anniversary.

Seeing what can only be called a mess in the kitchen, Alec wonders if this is when Magnus started experimenting.

Usually, Alec gets nervous around mess, but never around Magnus’s. There is always a certain beauty about it, something that reflects his mere soul. Herbs are hanging from the ceiling, drying, diffusing the light in shades of rosemary, wild citrus, and marjoram. On the countertop next to the window are several bowls turned upside down to protect what Alec can only call mixtures. He frowns before remembering that one of Magnus’s obsessions in cooking were mushrooms. The rare and disgusting kinds if anyone were to ask him.

But what Alec finds the most endearing are the vegetables. He knows how Magnus likes to sort them out and visibly, he has kept the same habits in centuries. He sorts them out by colors, giving every corner of the room the right shade of red, yellow, green, or purple.

It’s all about the colors and how each piece reflects the light around, my dear, Magnus explained once. Would you like to help?

It was fun. It was more like Alec was fumbling with everything Magnus gave him than helping, but it felt like watching his husband apply his makeup or redecorate their home. Magnus was opening up for him, letting him share his view of the world, and it was mesmerizing. The world as a work of art. That was something new to Alec, and after getting a taste, he couldn’t get enough. Every detail pointed out by Magnus was like a revelation to him.

He is still daydreaming when Magnus starts cooking something, using some magic to speed things up. It stresses Alec again to watch his future husband use magic in front of him – a stranger. What happened?

“Please, have a seat, it will be ready soon.”

“Thanks.”

Alec does as he is told, not really knowing where to start, not wanting to make things worse by saying the wrong thing. He is about to ask what day it is when Magnus reads his mind again.

“I found you last night, some meaningless demons were after you. I wondered what demons could want with a Mundane in the middle of the night when I saw you draw a sword out of thin air. I thought you were a Shadowhunter, but I don’t see any rune or glamour.”

He stops for a while, deep in thought, allowing Alec the time bask in relief.

“You had almost all of them killed, and I was about to let you handle it when one of them bit you, and you collapsed. The thing poisoned you. It’s meant to affect your memory of them. Some kind of defense mechanism to make sure you don’t remember any of it.”

Oh.

Alec means to thank him, but Magnus continues in a more cautious voice.

“I’m guessing asking you who you are is useless, huh?” he turns slightly, enough for Alec to get a glimpse of his expression. Curiosity. Alec swallows thickly.

“I… I wish I could tell you, but it’s um—”

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Magnus sighs. “I figured. You said that a lot this morning… Normally, I’d try harder, but there’s clearly something unique about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s…something about the way my magic responded to you, or rather how your body accepted it like it would oxygen, and at the same time, something was keeping me out.”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t say a thing.”

“It’s alright. I have nothing but time to figure it out, and you must have a lot of fascinating stories to tell. I want to spend a nice evening for a change.” On those words, Magnus brings food to the table and smiles. “Shall we?”

Thousands of memories instantly bloom in Alec’s mind from the seeds of these words and this smile.

To appease his homesick heart, Alec answers what he always does, re-enacting a cherished routine he has been craving for the last month and a half. “After you.”

#malec fic #malec fanfic #malec fanfiction #alec lightwood #magnus bane #my writing #shadowhunters #time travel #alec misses magnus #fluff #tiny bit of magnus angst #but alec is there #don't worry #emotional hurt/comfort #a lot of love #malec

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wrenhyperfixates · 4 years ago

Text

Of All the Places

Chapter 9

Pairing: Loki x reader Series Summary: Washing up in a small town in Oklahoma was definitely not part of Loki’s plan when he came to conquer Midgard. There is one good thing about it, though: No one recognizes him as the one who just wreaked havoc in New York. So, Loki plans to recover from the battle and move on with his life. The only problem? He’s not sure he can leave you. Chapter Summary: A morning with you and a talk with John make it clear to Loki what he has to do. And, perhaps letting the right people in on his secret wouldn’t be so bad, after all. Chapter Warnings: some very fluffy bits and tons of pining A/N: From here on out, it’s going to get pretty plot heavy, so be prepared. Feel free to let me know what you think :) Updates every Friday.

Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @marvelousdaydreams @parkastoria @lokistan��

✥ Start at Beginning ✥ | ← Previous Chapter | Next Chapter →

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

Loki regained control of consciousness slowly, each sense returning to him one at a time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so soundly without having been injured. The last thing to register in his brain was your weight on his chest. You were on top of him even more than you had been last night, but he did not mind in the slightest. Instead, he smiled softly at your sleeping form, listening to the sound of your deep breathing. His eyes fell to your lips, parted ever so slightly, and he was overcome with desire to kiss you awake. He shook his head a little at the ridiculous idea.

He intended to sneak away and leave you to rest, but you foiled his plans by snuggling closer to him in your sleep, pinning him where he was. Looking down at your peaceful form, he caught a whiff your scent. It made him feel safe, a sensation he’d not been familiar with in a long time.

“Loki,” you whispered in your sleep.

“Yes?” he prompted, his heart beating a wild rhythm.

“Cold.”

“Ah, I see.”

It was silly to be disappointed. He shouldn’t have expected much else, after all, but it was not so uncommon for someone to make a confession in their sleep. He pulled the blankets tighter around you. For good measure, he said an enchantment to warm you up and ward off the cold radiating from his body. You released a sigh of joy and cuddled closer still.

Loki supposed he could go back to sleep, he very much would have liked to in fact, but now that he was up, his mind was racing. Now that he was sure of what he wanted, he’d need a plan to get it. To get you. The only problem existed in the form of his incompetence toward mortal courting procedures. He was vaguely aware that it was usually referred to as dating nowadays, but that didn’t exist on Asgard, so the word held very little meaning to him. A twinge of sadness shot through his heart as he realized Thor would probably know, considering his infatuation with that mortal woman, Jane Foster. Someone that he had been kept away from because of Loki. Now that he had you, his own mortal to love and cherish, he felt it an indescribable evil that he’d done such a thing.

“G’morning,” you mumbled in a groggy voice, too recently out of sleep to be embarrassed by your position just yet. You looked up at Loki and rubbed your eyes. “How’d you sleep?”

“Better than I have in a long, long time.”

“Yeah, hard work will do that to a person.”

“Perhaps,” he said, trailing one hand gently down your arm as the other came to rest on the small of your back. “Or perhaps it was something else.”

“Oh! Well, um, you know,” you fumbled for a coherent sentence, his words suddenly brining you to your senses. “It was probably the work thing. Building a barn, all that dancing. It takes a lot of a guy.”

You nervously laughed and made like you were going to roll off of him, but his arm didn’t budge, holding you in place.

“Well, for whatever reason, I am still rather tired. I would not mind a lazy morning.”

His beautiful grin convinced you to stay, and he couldn’t resist humming a little Asgardian tune as you absentmindedly played with his hair. It was a song Frigga had sung to him when he was just a child, before the malice had rooted itself in his heart. It always reminded him of a simpler, more innocent time. Here, with you, he felt that same feeling he did then.

“That’s really pretty,” you said once he was finished. “What song is it?”

“Something from deep in my memory. I am afraid that is all I can say.”

“Oh, well that’s good that things are coming to you in bits and pieces. Your brother, that book, this song—you’ll remember everything before you know it.”

“And yet, nothing could compare to this.”

“Yeah, this town is pretty charming.”

“I suppose you do not remember the last conversation we had about this,” he tsked. “It is not the town that I am referring to.”

Your eyes went wide as you looked at him. No matter how many times he said something like that, you wouldn’t get over it. Often, he couldn’t believe he said them, either, for a whole slew of reasons. For one, falling in love with a mortal was the last thing he’d ever imagined for his life. Though, now that he knew more about humans, he found it far more believable. And for another, he just didn’t have all that much confidence that anyone could love him like that. Why say such things if the feelings wouldn’t be reciprocated? That was the thing, though. With you, he dared hope they might be.

You opened your mouth to say something, but were cut off by the creaking of the barn doors. A loud meow came from Taffy as she made her way up to where you were, but you knew the cat wouldn’t have been able to open the doors. You and Loki looked at each for a brief second, both mortified and nervous to be found in such an intimate, vulnerable way. As a voice sounded from down below, you hastily broke apart, and Loki immediately missed your warmth.

“Are you out here?” Mama shouted, calling your name.

“Up here,” you said, leaning over the edge. “Loki’s here, too, in case you were worried.”

“Well, of course I was worried, but not ’bout him. Do you know how close I came to a heart attack when you weren’t in your bed this morning?”

“You are aware I’m not five anymore, right Mama?”

“Yeah, well, with your judgement,” she said, eyeing up Loki as he appeared beside you, “you sure seem like you are sometimes. Now hurry along before you miss breakfast.”

Well, the truce was nice while it lasted, but Loki guessed that whatever points he’d won with her from saving Matt were canceled out by his evening with you. Apparently she wasn’t too keen on the idea of you two cozying up with each other. Not that he meant that in a weird way or anything, but last night had been pretty intimate. And that wasn’t even mentioning this morning.

Shooting Loki an apologetic smile for Mama’s comment, you scurried down the ladder as not to upset the woman more. The raven haired god sighed and followed you, casting one last longing glance at the pile of blankets and pillows where you were snuggled together just moments ago.

“Listen here, boy,” Mama menaced in a low tone, putting up a hand to stop him. She checked over her shoulder to make sure you were already out of the barn before continuing. “I won’t be losing another one of my babies to an untrustworthy stranger.”

“I believe I already told you, I would never hurt them, never hurt any of you,” he almost pleaded. “That is not my intention.”

“Just because you don’t mean to hurt someone, doesn’t mean you won’t.”

She stalked out before Loki could get another word in, not that he really knew what to say. She was right, after all, especially when it came to him. How many people, how many families, had he destroyed in his path of life? He’d certainly ruined his own.

The God of Mischief sat down on a hay bale, burying his head in his hands. He felt distraught beyond words, torn between his head and his heart. His mind was screaming to let you be, but his heart—oh, his poor crippled heart!—was begging to never be away from you. And, in the end, wouldn’t leaving lead to pain for you, too? Whether you loved him back or not, he knew you cared in some way.

“Loki, you alright out here?” John called from the barn doors. “Mama said you were coming along, but you-know-who was starting to panic that you’d fainted or something.”

The trickster god smiled at your concern for his well being. It only strengthened his conviction that you wouldn’t totally scorn him if he were to tell you how he truly feels. Still, the thought of actually doing that was so daunting that he hid his face again.

“I am fine,” he said, taking in a deep breath. “Just fine, thank you.”

“You’re not,” John replied as he sat next to Loki. “We’re friends, right man? You can talk to me, too, you know.”

“It would be quite a lot to unpack, I am afraid,” he admitted with a wry laugh.

“I’ve got time.”

“I...” he began, unsure of how much he could say without revealing the truth. “The whole time I have been here, I have felt that I should leave. But now I do not know how I could do that without hurting those I care about. I also cannot fathom staying here forever without telling my true feelings to...” he trailed off, not quite ready to admit it out loud just yet, but when John said your name, Loki confirmed it with a nod. “For the first time in a while, I do not know what my next move should be.”

“Well, for starters, be completely honest with me, God of Mischief and Lies.”

“Pardon?” Loki deadpanned, his mouth dry.

“I know, Loki. But before you run off, I haven’t told anyone.”

“When? Why?” Loki questioned, at a loss for words.

“Remember when I went into the city the other day to get supplies after the tornado?” Loki nodded. He would have gone, too, but there was still too much damage around the farm from the twister for both of them to take off. “I found out then. Some small newspaper ran a story on it, and I put the pieces together.”

“And as for the why?”

“Because you’d literally just saved my son not forty-eight hours before. You didn’t have to do that, but you did. So I don’t care what they say, I don’t think you’re all that bad. Or bad at all, really. Don’t worry, you’re secret’s safe with me.”

Loki nodded slowly, comprehending the information he’d just been given. John really was a friend to Loki, but he was something more, too. He was almost what a brother should be, in Loki’s mind at least. He was like how Thor used to be when they were children. There was one time, before he’d received any kind of training, when Loki’s spell had backfired on him. It had hurt, both emotionally and physically, but he was too fearful of being reprimanded to tell his parents. Thor had sat with him then, much like John was doing now.

“I cannot even begin to thank you,” he finally said. “And I truly promise that I will do everything in my power to protect this family, not hurt it.”

“I believe you, but you have to promise one thing.”

“And that would be?”

“Tell them how you truly feel.”

It was a fairly reasonable request, all things considered. And John had insisted multiple times that you felt the same way about him. So perhaps this story wouldn’t have such a tragic finish after all. Then again, did villains get happy endings? Or maybe Loki wasn’t the villain. It’d been a bit since he hadn’t thought himself one, but in light of everything that had happened over the last month or so, he was starting to see things in a more favorable way.

“Alright,” he agreed. “I will do it, but you must give me time to plan.”

“Deal. And I hope you know, you’re going to have to tell them the truth sooner rather than later. About all this.”

“I do know. And it will be sooner. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt them.”

“It’s like I said before, Loki, I believe you.”

After thanking him again, they headed to the house, those three words ringing in Loki’s ears. I believe you. It had been a long time since anyone had believed Loki. Maybe he could believe John and accept that you liked him too. Maybe. But he wouldn’t have to guess for long; he knew he’d be finding out very, very soon.

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that-wizard-oki · 4 years ago

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if your up to rambling about it more, how would arc 3 have gone with morganthe there?

Alright anon, and all who happen to be interested in my damn theories... after 2 very long days, here are my... general... ideas on how Arc 3 might have gone with Morganthe present.

This is a long one my dudes. Grab a snack, take a seat, and if you make it to the end, thanks for reading.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Morganthe & The Wizard’s Character Foil would be the cornerstone of this arc.

Y’know how everyone talks about Zuko and Aang being one of the greatest character foils in fiction? Well, in a nutshell, I think that Khrysalis part 1 & 2 (and arguably the entire second arc) built up this wonderful relationship between Morganthe & The Wizard- one that i think could easily be just as memorable and clever as the aforementioned.

If you’re unfamiliar with my thought’s on this idea, here’s a rundown:

All throughout arc 2, Morganthe’s dialogue towards the wizard is usually focused on things they both have in common. We’re both students of Ravenwood, both have studied under Merle Ambrose directly, we were both considered prodigies, respectively. Some other characters also bring up things here and there, most notably Tse Tse Snaketail in Mirror Lake (which, by the way… mirror lake…c’mon) who claimed “she (Morganthe) knows you better than you know yourself!”

Azteca is when we really begin to see the foil between Morganthe and the Wizard start to be set in motion. Azteca itself is the first time I think our wizard is truly and utterly overwhelmed with obstacles- Between the impending doom of Xibalba, the raising of the Undead (once again, mind you), the revival of our last greatest foe, AND the fact that Morganthe, the puppet master behind this all, is always one step ahead of us the entire time.

A huge moment for the Wizard IS that we fail in Azteca. This is where our wizard has to face the sting of failure, and it runs deep. While the wizard has thus far fought against evil within the Spiral for the sake of justice and protection, NOW the wizard's motivation to go after Morganthe has shifted from the general expectation to do so, to something MUCH more personal. Our desire to ensure Morganthe is defeated, is forever tied to our own sense of self worth- if we don’t defeat her, we are a failure.

We can easily see the parallel between this and Morganthe’s motivation, which has thus far been fueled by her desire to show Merle what she’s capable of- and that she will go to the greatest length to prove so.

In Khrysalis, we see the Wizard grow into a similar mindset. They’re much more rash in how they go about pursuing Morganthe, learning ways to try and fight her more evenly when the time comes, and eventually hunting her down. It snowballs to the point where our wizard, despite several warnings, decides to release the god of chaos under the presumption that he will aid them in their goal to defeat the shadow queen. Even more alarmingly, Spider reveals to the Wizard that Morganthe was actually infused with this great power (not stolen, like the arachna had claimed), and that the arachna had groomed her into a weapon of mass destruction by design. Despite knowing that Morganthe was just a puppet on strings this whole time, our wizard still feels that defeating her is the only way to truly avenge themselves. THIS is what Old Cob was hoping for. He WANTED the wizard to be so self absorbed in the idea that Morganthe’s very existence was something that the Spiral, that the Wizard themselves needed to be cleansed of.

And we played right into the palm of his hand, and after we defeated her, Spider released his children and nightmares into the world. However, It is not gratifying relief we are met with. Instead, there is only a long, daunting, shadow, and it’s in our likeness.

This was a little watered down, but these parallels between Morganthe & The Wizard has always been so interesting to me, and when Arc 3 began, I was fully expecting Morganthe to return in SOME way and the wizard would have to go through a self-reflective journey WITH her in order to really come to terms with what they did, or that Cob was hurting them instead of helping.

Of course, that’s not what we got… but to answer your question now anon- what do i think Arc 3 should have been with Morganthe there, with all this in mind?

Obviously, Morganthe and the Wizard need to have their development & closure- but let’s take a deeper look into how that would work for the both of them.

First off, Morganthe needs a reason to return. Character wise, she has a few purposes:

She was the closest one who had been connected to Old Cob. Even if most of it was him manipulating her, they shared a connection through Morganthe’s intrigue of Shadow Magic, and perhaps she had directly communicated to him at one point.

Besides Spider himself, she probably knows more about Shadow Magic than any other being in the Spiral. She WAS the one who re-discovered the existence of Shadow Magic, after all.

To expand on this reason, I think Morganthe might have even figured out ways to connect with her own Shadow in more uh, constructive ways, than perhaps Spider and Raven (I’ll get into this later).

With these factors, I think Morganthe being present in Arc 3 means that she would have been a very valuable asset in helping the Wizard & crew go after Spider/Raven simultaneously.

Now, I think a really fun way to integrate Morganthe into Arc 3 more seamlessly, is to have a plot point that alludes to her still being alive. Otherwise, I don’t think the Wizard/anyone else would bother trying to revive or find her JUST for the sake of “maybe she would be helpful”.

Remember when, after we defeated Morganthe, Old Cob informed us that we had “absorbed too much of her power, and that it would consume us” and so we have to give it back to the land?

Well, what if when we did, that “power” held her memories, her very own Shadows? And when we returned it to the land, those Memories might’ve returned to their place in time?

Take Morganthe’s memory in Wizard City for example- the one rooted in when she accidentally lost control of her powers when attempting astral spells. This specific part of her shadow, not being able to return to a physical vessel, found its way back to its place of origin. Maybe Diego, upon training students in combat, runs into issues with a “specter” of some sort haunting the battle grounds, and reports these disturbances to Ambrose. As the game normally does, Merle would reach out to us about this problem.

I think a good time frame for this to happen is after Mirage/before Empyrea- arguably, this is the Wizard at their lowest point. Mellori has just been captured, we just found out she’s Raven’s Child, and BOTH gods are now not in our favor. That way, when we investigate the Arena in WC, and find out this ‘specter’ resembles a young Morganthe, the wizard would truly feel overwhelmed with the idea of her still being alive/out there WHILE all this is happening.

Whether we tell Merle or the Arcanum scholars first isn’t super important, but the point is that Morganthe potentially being alive is now an additional problem on top of everything else at hand. As the scholars, wizard, and perhaps Ambrose/additional characters problem solve what to do, they begin to bring up the character points I brought up earlier. I think Velma, being the shadow scholar, would mention that Morganthe WAS the shadow queen, and might be useful as a prisoner to help get information on Old Cob’s plans/biddings. I think Ione would agree, and that Morganthe could also be potentially working under him in some way, and that making sure she is a controlled variable is most important right now. The last thing the Spiral, or the wizard, needs is a wild card threat.

I think… knowing that the Wizard had just lost Mellori, and among other things, Velma would request to assist the Wizard in this task, since it is Shadow-magic related and she’s only been able to learn about this school of magic through what little has been available outside of Khrysalis. The wizard, though I think reluctant about the idea, doesn’t argue against her coming along.

If you follow my idea that Velma had gone to Ravenwood with Morganthe, and they’d been good friends there, I think Velma coming along to investigate this matter is also important- perhaps when they both return to the Duel Arena and try to confront this memory of Morganthe’s, the wizard’s first instinct is to fight it into submission, but Velma might take a more gentle approach, as she remembers the likeliness of an old friend.

The memory becomes more in control of itself; Seeing Velma, it was reminded of a pleasant part of itself- friendship, comradery amongst fellow wizards, instead of just abandonment and loss as it had been previously engrossed in.

Once calmed, the Memory can “think” more clearly, and does its best to answer the inevitable questions; what are you? How did you get to wizard city? Is the “real” Morganthe still alive? And so on... Obviously the memory has a limited understanding of what they’re asking. Eventually, they piece together that there are OTHER memories out there, and they need to be found and returned back to their physical owner- Morganthe.

I won’t go into the big details here, but they then travel to Avalon and Khrysalis, maybe even places she had been as a pirate, to find the other two missing Memories. Velma probably learns a bit more than she was expecting to, and the Wizard’s consciousness, especially when they get to the memory related to Khrysalis, starts to weigh heavy.

Any who, these three memories are collected, and being extensions of Morganthe herself, are able to help navigate the wizard, Velma, and perhaps other Arcanum members (for safety reasons because that's the literal queen of shadow right there lads) to where her physical body resides.

Using one of the ships in the Arcanum, they are led by the memories into the dark sea of space, not too far off from Khrysalis. Soon, they come across a swirl of rubble and shattered remnants. Weaving their way through, a cluster of fragmented glass paves the way to an abandoned vessel, sleeping gently, frozen in time and protected by her own demise. They’ve found Morganthe’s body.

Simply put, the memories return to her, and the wizard/Velma contains her comatose body to be brought back to the Arcanum.

Once they’ve returned with Morganthe, a lot of things could happen, and since this is all just theory of something that’s already passed, I’m just gonna list off some of those things that I think would have been interesting to see, so, here goes lol (warning, this turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated I'm SORRY lol)

Morganthe would have maintained in a comatose state for at least a bit once at the Arcanum. The main issue now is figuring out what to exactly do with her now that she is alive.

I’ve kind of enjoyed the idea that Ione/other scholars would be pushing for some sort of trial- she did technically commit genocide against the Aztecasouars, and no one but the wizard, except for MAYBE Velma since she was also retrieving her memories, knows that she was being controlled when she had done so.

I also think the idea of a trial, something rooted in judgement, would provide an interesting setting for just allllll the damn shit to be let loose. Like Morganthe would wake, finally free of the shadow that the arachna had pumped into her body, free of Cob’s very voice in her head, only to wake to find she'd murdered an entire civilization, among defiling the dead, and is being held accountable for doing so. Everyone’s obviously against her, for good reason as they think, but the Wizard’s just here like “I know this bitch was literally forced to do these things but I never told anyone about any of that because I wanted to just believe I was right, and I still have this grudge against her for making me feel like a failure, so I kind of just want to see her imprisoned or worse” and of course you have Velma, who just got her long lost friend/childhood love back, is now faced with the possibility of losing her again, and FINALLY you’ve got MERLE who’s probably just silently taking all this in as it unfolds, since he has had a very fixed perspective on the whole ordeal and doesn’t even know what to believe.

I don’t wanna spend too much time on the ins/outs of this idea, but generally, even if this wouldn’t have happened, the group learns (perhaps through Velma’s advocation, since I doubt the wizard would be doing it) more about Morganthe’s situation, maybe even that the wizard knew this whole time and never said anything- but the general consensus becomes that, since Morganthe isn’t working for Cob (she might even speak of how much she probably despises him for what he did to her), and because she’s so knowledgeable on Shadow Magic, it might actually be best for the Wizard and her to work together to try and rescue Mellori.

Obviously, both of them are reluctant about this, though I think the wizard is more so. Morganthe might actually have a soft spot for the Wizard, seeing a lot of herself in them, and also having tread on similar paths. I think it would be so, so fun to see Morganthe try to connect with the wizard, but the wizard constantly shuts her down or ignores her because they don't want to admit they’re so similar. But then you have the moments where they have to help each other. Maybe it’s when both have to go into the Nexus to get Mellori back, and Morganthe has an easier time weaving through this Shadow Plane because of her experiences with it, and the Wizard really has to trust her to help lead them through it. In turn, maybe Morganthe actually struggles when they reach Ravenwood in the Nexus because it triggers those memories of being expelled and cast out, and the wizard has to help ground her so she doesn’t slip into this un-reality. Like! That feels so powerful and moving to me- that despite being used and pitted against one another by Spider, they learn to work past those false feelings and really begin to see each other eye to eye.

Though I think it is important to bring up they are dealing with slightly different parts of their Shadows- Morganthe is a step or so ahead, having already connected with them. Now, her goal is to accept them, and while I think she has more or less accepted her three memories from earlier, the fourth one, the one of her as shadow queen, the one where she isn’t just her, but also Spider controlling her… the part she doesn’t want, but remains true. To accept her rage, her anger towards Merle that mirrored Cob’s anger about Raven- this is her true challenge for this Arc.

Remember how I said Morganthe’s motivation in Arc 2 was to prove Merle wrong and show him that she was powerful? Well, now it’s to extract revenge on Old Cob in a similar way. Logically, she knows killing him would mean the end of the Spiral, so the struggle for her is to FIGHT against that desire, the rage, accept it, acknowledge it, and convert that energy into something that can help her and others heal from the scars of the past.

Alongside Morganthe interacting and coming to terms with herself, her shadows, everything, I think the Wizard must learn to let Shadow into their own life. Shadow is not this evil thing that they think it is- it, as Spiders is as well, a necessary part of all life in the Spiral. Instead of casting it away, we have to know that the parts of ourselves we don't like aren’t what define us, but we should see and acknowledge them so they don't consume us; which i think the wizard is at risk of.

Any who… that’s a lot, but ultimately, I think when we come to the end of Arc 3, to the Husk, The Wizard & Morganthe have to make the decision to completely trust in themselves and each other. As Spider said worlds ago, we are both the Children of Light & Shadow. I know Arc 3 presents the wizards at the Scion, a balancing force between Mellori and Bat, but I’m gonna be honest, I think it would be much more compelling for BOTH the wizard & Morganthe to act as this “middle ground”- Literally thus far everything about them screams yin and yang; the wizard primarily hailed as the harbinger of light, Morganthe as the umbra queen- yet they are not completely The Light or The Dark- they both have a piece in each other, they both work together, they balance each other out.

Perhaps a stronger set up to still include Bat and Mellori is them simply realizing that they are not their parents- they do not have to do what is expected of them just because of who or what they are, they can choose to support each other as siblings, instead of taking one of their parents sides and hurting each other. They, like the wizard and Morganthe, can work together as one.

This way too, the weight of having to be the Sole Person balancing everything all the time, ISN'T put on the wizard- it can be shared by another.

ANYWHO… I know I'm rambling a bit at this point, but similarly to Arc 3’s end, they’d work past their own desire for revenge or pride, and combine their strengths to become what we originally see the wizard transform into during the fight with the Storm Titan; a Child of Light and Shadow.

Also, here’s a few side things I’d like to see happen in this Arc, as well as the final conclusion for Morganthe’s character.

Morganthe being protective of the Wizard, and the Wizard being protective of Mellori I stated earlier that Morganthe see’s a lot of herself in the wizard, and can feel responsible for them in some way. The same goes for the Wizard and Mellori- there’s this interesting domino effect they've got going on in terms of that, so i just think some dialogue reflecting this dynamic between the three would be fun.

Though once Mellori and the Bat are united, Morganthe would definitely have Some Feelings come up regarding her and her own brother. I think it would be fun for Morganthe to be extremely wary of Bat for this reason, and also because he’s the son of the God who used her power and body for his own gain. Maybe Morganthe has a sly line towards Bat, or something about her being like “I’m watching you” because she doesn’t want to see another person go through what she did with Malory.

Also…. Morganthe helplessly being unable to call Mellori “Mellori”, and instead says “Mallory” every time because That’s Baggage! Morganthe’s like, “Wizard, we gotta get Mallory from the Nexus!” or something and everyone’s like “... you mean Mellori?” and she’s like “... that’s what i said, right?” like this shit is so, so funny to me.

Also Morganthe eventually warms up to Bat, seeing him be a Good Older Brother in part 2. Ideally, it would also be nice to see her open up to him about Mallory, and they just have a Moment about shitty families, trust issues, having done bad things because What Else Can You Do?… god, that stuff hurts my soul. Let your Siblings Heal Kingsisle, i will not rest until they do lmao.

Oh yea! How could i forget the biggest thing outside of the wizard/Morganthe- Merle and Morganthe! Wow do those two need some damn closure together. I’m not stuck in a definitive way that this could happen- Generally though, I think Morganthe would be avoidant of Merle at first, as she feels that she ultimately failed to do what he cast her out to do when he banished her, which was to “find her true self” and learn to control astral magic. Not only was she unable to do that, but she was unfortunately roped into the arachna, and we know the jist of what happens from there. On the other hand, Morganthe is also angry towards Merle- if he wouldn’t have banished her, and instead been patient with her powers and helped her learn, NONE of what she had to endure in Khrysalis would have happened.

For Merle, his perception for so long was that Morganthe's endless curiosity drove her into Shadow Magic, and thus became the Shadow Queen- with this thought, his act of banishing her was justified because she was just a lost cause either way. Now, however, he’s realizing that that wasn’t the case at all- instead, she was truly trying to learn how to master astral magic and control her powers, and unfortunately others decided to take advantage of her curiosity and ability- so he’s trying to grapple with the guilt of inevitably putting her through that.

They both are understandably scared to confront each other, and I think their avoidance would carry out through to Empyrea part 1, maybe even a bit into part 2. Again, i don’t have a definitive thing in mind (since Merle isn’t super active in arc 3 anyhow), but perhaps they’ve been put into a situation where they just simply cannot avoid one another- or maybe Morganthe’s having a hard time convincing the wizard or Ione or someone on what they should do next, Merle tries to interject, “Morganthe, perhaps-”, but Morganthe snaps at him, “ and I certainly don’t want to hear what the man that caused all of this has to say about it!” … silence fills the room, Merle taken aback, Morganthe looking him dead in the eyes, meaning what she said but regretting it as the first thing she said to him. She huffs, storms out of the room...

With just a nod to the others and the wizard, Merle leaves and follows her out, maybe she’s pacing around the end of the halls, and when she sees Merle she just starts pouring her heart out in anger. “Don’t you follow me out like that, don’t you pretend to care for me now! You couldn’t possibly understand what’s at stake here, not that you would take the time to understand anything you don’t know!” she huffs, angry with him and herself, “I know I was curious and naïve and stubborn, but where were you!? Why couldn’t you help me, why, why was the only option for you to to take the only thing I had left and send me away?” this is where her anger starts to fade and she’s becomes quieter, yet still stern, “The worst of it is that I told myself I'd do what you never could, and when I did, I’d return to prove you and everyone else who looked at me and saw a failure, a monster, wrong... but I never got that far. I only got to the point where some forgotten God of chaos decided what my ‘true self’ was for me… and like the curious, stupid little girl I was, i played right into his hand-” and here she’d become overwhelmed and start talking more specifically about her anger towards what was done in Khrysalis, ending with “and through all of it, and even now, even though I’m so, so angry at you, I still wanted you to be there for me. Why weren’t you there for me?”

I like the imagery that, the whole time Morganthe has been unraveling her thoughts and emotions at him, Merle has been slowly moving closer and closer to her, and when she says this, she melts into his arms, sobbing- finally getting that comfort from him that she’s wanted all this time.

Merle, now holding her, begins to speak softly, “You don’t have to forgive me, but I am truly sorry for all that has transpired from my own failings. In all my years, turning you away has remained one of my deepest regrets.” This is getting a bit long, but the main points I think Merle would make in his apology towards Morganthe, is that ‘her true self’ is not something anyone, not even he, should define for herself, and that Merle thinks she has already found her true self, and that it’s not being Shadow Queen, it’s not being a puppet, it’s not being a failure or his apprentice or a monster, but being in tune with yourself- something she had started doing with her own Shadows/Memories.

Anywho. Sorry for the heavy dialogue but i think about these two everyday and just want them to HUG IT OUT MAN… AAAAA

Furthermore; I think a very fitting End for Morganthe’s character is that she, upon Merle’s request, would become a professor of Shadow Magic at Ravenwood, with the idea that she could properly introduce Shadow to wizards in a controlled environment, and help erase the stigma surrounding it. Not only do i think she’d make a great professor or teacher because of her enthusiasm towards magic, but i think it would be satisfying for her to help others who might have difficulties with magic/their powers since that was a core reason for her own suffering. Also, her and Velma are DATING and are cute shadow scholar lesbians together, it’s cute af, thank you, moving on.

Lastly, the Wizard would have some closure, or at least tools to eventually reach closure about the things I've talked about in this post. Hypothetically, arc 4 could have then been focused on the wizard’s self-journey to become in-tune with their shadows and memories.

SO uh… yea i think that’s the overall ideas i had about how Arc 3 might have gone if Morganthe was a factor. I haven’t actually spent a lot of time thinking about Morganthe in arc 3 though, since the arc is now finished and we’re onto arc 4, and i always enjoy trying to implement new lore, like the sewers, into these theories, and even who or what Morganthe is- bt this was fun to revisit! I do think her being in Arc 3 would have been most fitting thus far though, so i always like coming back to the what-could-have-been ideas :’D

But yea! If you’ve made it this far… Thanks for reading lol. And if you want me to go more in depth with anything i had mentioned in this post, because some things i decided to gloss over for simplicity's sake, feel free to ask :D

Anywho…. Bye oTL

#wizard101 #oki's theories #oki answers a thing #anon

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deadlygronkle · 4 years ago

Text

Ancestor’s Legacy Part 3.5/4

Author’s note: While this is part 4 it is technically part 3.5, and is about basically what happened during part 3 in Twilight’s perspective.

Twilight was having a bad week, or at least a bad 3 or so days. First it was that Hylia damned helmet that appeared, looking brand new, which Twilight admits looks a bit weird not seeing it covered in vines and degraded beyond repair, and it sitting on the head of his still alive mentor.

Next it was that mask which apparently can turn Time into a stalfos, which sends a lot of questions running through his head. Like how time could very well have been alive when he trained Twilight just older, just like how Twilight was sent through time in his wolf form to aid Wild. Though if that was the case that would raise some questions on how Time met him in Twilight’s hyrule in wolf form, or how Time somehow sent blasts of magic at him through his sword.

Twilight, shaking out of his state of confusion, continued to wander around Warriors’ Zelda’s castle, dubbed Artemis when they first met. Artemis reminded Twilight of his own Zelda, who he hasn’t seen since this whole ordeal began, in the sense of how strict but also kind to everyone no matter where they came from and what problems they carry with them. Both of them are also very intelligent especially in war tactics.

Twilight sighed as he looked to the area he was in. Twilight was staring at a long hallway with paintings of the past kings and queens adorning each side of the hallway. The carpet was a deep royal blue that every hallway in the castle had along with golden highlights that looked to be of Hyrule's insignia every foot or so.

Twilight sigh, just his luck he would somehow get lost in the castle after trying to avoid Time and his questions. Twilight is no idiot and knows he has been acting weird ever since the helmet appeared in one of Legend’s countless dungeons. He can’t help it, everytime he looks at Time with the helmet on all he can see is the Hero’s Shade’s skeletal face grinning down at him.

Twilight was startled out of his thoughts again as he heard a voice that sounded like Warriors shout “There you are!”.

Twilight turned around to find Warriors standing there, looking a bit out of breath, “How did you get all the way over here?”

Twilight shrugged and said “I got lost in thought and didn’t realise where I was going.”.

Warriors gave him a suspicious glance and replied “You seem to be doing a lot of thinking recently, wanna tell me about what's been bothering you so much to cause you to zone out in a moment’s notice, farm boy?”

Twilight, once again shrugged and replied “Just thinking about my quest through my own Hyrule, specifically the people I met during the journey.”

Warriors hummed “It has something to do with the old man doesn’t it” Twilight couldn’t stop the surprised look that came on his face. “I mean every time you have zoned out these past few days you always end up staring at Time like he is on his deathbed.”

Twilight sighed mulling over his words carefully before saying “Lets just say that I have seen his helmet before on someone who helped me on my quest” Warriors face lit up in recognition as he realised the implications of what Twilight said, “but you can’t tell him that I told you this alright?”.

Warriors at a loss for words just nodded. Twilight visibly loosened up and then stated “So what did you need me for?”

“We are leaving the castle here in like 15 minutes and you need to come back so we can make sure your weapons and everything are covered by the cloak” Warriors stated quickly going back into captain mode.

Twilight nodded “lead the way.”

Once they both got back to the group nearly everyone besides Twilight and Warriors were donning their heavy cloaks, but they quickly started putting their own cloaks on. Once everyone had their cloaks on Warriors, having taken the lead since this is his hyrule told the links that they were moving out in 10, much to the relief of Twilight for not being forced to wear the fever inducing cloak for very long.

Wild then walked up to Twilight who had been rearranging his cloak so he didn’t die of heat stroke and said “Hey will you be alright? You have been out of it all week”.

Twilight getting annoyed by how everyone was asking if he was ok stated as blatantly as possible “I’ll be fine, cub” leaving no room for any discussion.

Wild then said, not convinced, “If you say so.”

After the 10 minutes of Twilight avoiding Time they were off, getting the occasional odd look, but hey when is that new?

Once they finally got out to the gates Twilight quickly pulled out his Hawkeye mask to find where the horde of monsters was located only to find them watching the road like vultures do to find scraps of meat.

“Looks like the information is correct, they are watching the road like a bunch of scavengers” Twilight said while handing the mask to Warriors so he can see the horde.

“Okay so we have orange moblins and red bokoblins, that are currently hitting each other with their clubs, three unarmed lizalfos and one completely armoured lizalfos carrying both a sword and shield” Warriors stated, Wild perked up when he heard about the moblins and bokoblins. “We know from experience that these are the easier types of monsters, but don’t let your guard down, these monsters are corrupted.” Wild deflated a bit at this comment.

After the group decided who was going to fight the armoured lizalfos. They headed down to where the monsters were located, quickly being spotted by the lizalfos who then alerted the rest of the monsters.

Twilight getting a bit nervous about the aspect of these monsters surrounding them whispered “now?” only for warriors to wait a few seconds and then shouted “NOW”.

Before any of the other links reacted twilight whipped out his sword and slashed the lizalfos unmarked by the monster forcing the lizalfos to fall on his butt, much to the satisfaction of Twilight, who then ripped off the sweltering cloak.

Soon after the battle started the links were either fighting on their own or separated from what Twilight could see from the spare glances he allowed himself as he fought at least 7 different enemies including the armoured and an unarmoured lizalfos.

After Twilight realised he wasn’t getting anywhere with brute force he decided to do the Mortal Draw. So he jumped away from the fight and put his sword away all while not unfocusing his gaze from the monsters in front of him. Just as the Lizaflos came within sword distance, pleased that it would get an easy kill, Twilight pulled out his sword and ended the creature's miserable life, not before taking a hit to the stomach from the other lizalfos.

In a haze Twilight reacting on pure reflex stabbed the lizalfos in the eye ending that one's existence as well. As Twilight stumbled barely able to raise his shield in defense from the moblins attack, much less being able to finish them off, he heard a beastly roar that sent a shiver down his spine. Much to Twilight relief as he collapsed to the ground in pain barely staying conscious.

As he blinked away the pain above him he saw Hyrule rush over and start forcing him to drink a red potion getting down half of it before starting to refuse the disgusting liquid. As he started to fall asleep his eyes opened to see a stalfos wearing the Hero's Shade’s helmet.

Twilight wondered if the Shade knocked him down in their spare, as he forced himself to get up and pick up his sword and shield, while wondering why he felt so weak. Maybe he took a hit to the head before he met up with the Golden wolf and he was feeling the concussion that he got? Twilight didn’t know but he would try to focus on the lesson being taught to him.

Twilight then heard a voice sounding far off as he felt something trying to bring him down to the ground again, but he held strong.

The Shade then put down his sword and stated, like he was trying to calm a spooked animal “Calm down pup, it’s me Time, you’re injured just… just lay back down and we can fix you up”. ‘Who was time’ Twilight thought as he squinted towards the skeleton ‘ I know the name, but why can’t I put a face to it?’

The Shade walked forward causing Twilight to panic and jump back knocking something out of his way as he did so. Then he made a point to thrust his sword into the position that usually started the spar. ‘What is he doing?” Twilight wondered. As the force trying to pull him down tripled, but he locked his knees and kept waiting.

More voices, closer this time but words still jumbled, reach his ears. Then the Shade did something unexpected and ripped off his helmet making Twilight lower his sword in wonder, the hero’s shade never took off his helmet. The Shade raised his hand to his face and took off a mask?! Twilight started in shock as he dropped his sword and shield, barely hearing the man say “Com’on pup just lay back down.”. As twilight consciousness started to slip he connected the name to the face and as he felt himself start to crumble he let out a terrified sounding “T-Time?” Before the world around him faded to black and he felt himself fall.

Author’s note: While this is part 4 it is technically part 3.5, and is about basically what happened during part 3 in Twilight’s perspective.

Twilight was startled out of his thoughts again as he heard a voice that sounded like Warriors shout “There you are!”.

Twilight turned around to find Warriors standing there, looking a bit out of breath, “How did you get all the way over here?”

Twilight shrugged and said “I got lost in thought and didn’t realise where I was going.”.

Twilight, once again shrugged and replied “Just thinking about my quest through my own Hyrule, specifically the people I met during the journey.”

Warriors at a loss for words just nodded. Twilight visibly loosened up and then stated “So what did you need me for?”

Twilight nodded “lead the way.”

Wild then walked up to Twilight who had been rearranging his cloak so he didn’t die of heat stroke and said “Hey will you be alright? You have been out of it all week”.

Twilight getting annoyed by how everyone was asking if he was ok stated as blantinly as possible “I’ll be fine, cub” leaving no room for any discussion.

Wild then said, not convinced, “If you say so.”

After the 10 minutes of Twilight avoiding Time they were off, getting the occasional odd look, but hey when is that new?

“Looks like the information is correct, they are watching the road like a bunch of scavengers” Twilight said while handing the mask to Warriors so he can see the horde.

Twilight getting a bit nervous about the aspect of these monsters surrounding them whispered “now?” only for warriors to wait a few seconds and then shouted “NOW”.

Twilight then heard a voice sounding far off as he felt something trying to bring him down to the ground again, but he held strong.

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu twilight #lu sky #lu legend #lu hyrule #lu time #lu wild #lu wind #lu warriors #ancestor's legacy

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fauzhee10069 · 4 years ago

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JoJolion chapter 107 review (starring Higashikata Caato)

Why not? This chapter does star her.

We’re finally almost free from the crap of Caato’s hypes because she finally does something right now. This chapter is about her fight against Tooru and more about her character.

Previously related post:

The Long-Awaited Most-Hyped Character Finally Made Her Appearance: Caato

MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!! Don’t read more if you haven’t read the newest chapter (107) yet and don’t want to get spoiled!

JJL chapter 107: Kaato Higashikata's "Attack"

First, I’d like to try her recipe.

Actually, the reason she is in Higashikata’s house right now is to deliver Jobin’s favorite dish made by her… what a lovely mother. Too bad, instead she found her son’s dead body.

This actually should debunk some Caatofags silly idea of her as an evil person who doesn’t really care about her family. When it looks like more about Jobin, I think she does care to her daughters as well when she asked them to stay in their place.

Also, the speculation of Tooru’s tricking Caato also got debunked, obviously because Yasuho is there to tell her about what was really going on.

Yasuho in this chapter mostly just explains anything happened and her explanation regarding rock-humans and New Locacaca is because she has no reason to assume that Caato already knows about these things.

I like how Caato looks calm when Tooru was pointing knife (more like saw I think) at her, those tears in her eyes are still tears of grief over Jobin’s death, not due to her fear.

read it from left to right -->

That really sounds like a villain speech and it is said by Tooru. At this point I’m getting even more conviced that he is the true main villain of part 8.

Caato then revealed her Stand, the name is 「Space Trucking」 and I have explained its newest mechanism in my other post, so I won’t go in depth in discussing her Stand here. In short, she uses her Stand to hide some of Tooru’s limbs to incapacitate him.

Apparently, the one who called her “K-Kaato-san” in the last page of previous chapter was Yasuho and Tooru also knows about her (Caato). Just like what Maako, the girlfriend of Ojiro said that the news about her murdering a child 15 years ago is a well-known sensational news in Morioh, so it is not surprising if several characters in JJL know her.

I like Caato’s composure and softness here, kinda reminds me of Jolyne… yeah, she has been compared to Jolyne numerous times, her intro in prison is definitely a Jolyne’s reference. Araki once said that Norisuke IV is the JJL version of Josuke in part 4, as his elder counterpart so, what if Caato is also the elder counterpart of Jolyne in JJL? That kinda makes sense.

Caato already knows about the New Locacaca and so, does this mean that Caato was hiding another pot of the New Locacaca?? Or is that the same pot that Tooru and Yasuho had been fighting for in previous chapters?

My guess is that it is the ‘same’ pot, look how the pot that Caato reveals does not have any fruit either. I think Caato is just playing with her Stand’s ability while talking about the New Locacaca or… perhaps, while she looks like she is playing, she actually manages to hide and steal a part of the plants(?)

Look, a flashback of Caato and Jobin! I think it officially becomes her trait to always barge in unannounced and startled whoever was in the room. They were in Jobin’s beetle collection room where he hid the New Locacaca there.

Look at the window that still looks intact there, then this flashback happened before the fight between Jobin-Tsurugi and Ojiro.

This is so wholesome this scene basically tells that no matter how old Jobin is he is still Caato’s baby.

Okay, I’m not into symbolization but now I want to talk about it just a moment, while this could be simply a JoJo thing that Jobin was wearing such impractical design for the sake of fashion, with that outfit he basically locked his own wrist which might symbolize of being handcuffed.

If you’re willing to take a look at the flashback scene in chapter 64, Jobin started wearing such outfit when he was a teenager right before Caato got caught by the police. Is this a form of Jobin's empathy for his mother who was in prison? Even though this symbolization is slightly missed because he was already wearing that outfit just before Caato got caught.

Told ya, the window still wasn't broken yet.

So, Jobin eventually told everything to his mom, about the New Locacaca, its equivalent exchange ability, the orchard burning and Tsurugi’s involvement.. and the most important thing that’s being revealed here is that the sap has the same power as the fruit! Those beetles show that we don’t necessarily need to have the fruit to get the effect of perfect equivalent exchange!!

Also, this actively debunk those wild theory of Caato being the mastermind of everything, she did not seem to possess any Locacaca before, she did not know the existence of the New Locacaca (and possibly about the rock-humans either), she did not know what truly happened during the orchard burning, she doesn't look like she is a secret rock-wahmen either, etc.

She is not as mighty as those Caatofags want her to be, however…

…her character remains consistent since the early of her introduction, that she actually had a conflicting view with Norisuke IV regarding the family’s ethic and moral value. This is about what we call “selflessness vs selfishness” again, and Caato’s view is more dominant in influencing Jobin.

Caato is not the mastermind controlling Jobin like a puppet like those Caatofags was promoting. Everything Jobin has done in this story is of his own will, starting from his cooperation with rock-humans, the struggle of the New Locacaca and the burning orchards. However, Jobin's way of thinking, motivation and ambition have been influenced by Caato's views and how she has nurtured him.

And in this chapter, Caato is being supportive towards Jobin like she had always been (read: chapter 59 and 64). Plus, Caato and Jobin’s Stand names being references to Deep Purple’s songs may signify their close relationship.

Looks like she just basically activated her Stand on the plant, it could be hidden whenever someone tried to come and get it but it wasn’t truly activated, at least that’s what the translation implies.

read it from right to left <---

「Wonder of U」 starts appearing behind Caato, does it mean that Caato really start harming Tooru? Another new feat of her Stand’s ability that it is able to fully hide a living being, which she uses to hide her grandson Tsurugi.

She makes Tooru to do equivalent exchange with dying Tsurugi while 「Wonder of U」is seen rushing towards Caato… end in cliffhanger. Probably my favorite page here. Basically, what Caato does is ‘two birds in one stone’ movement, breaking the Higashikata family’s curse by saving her grandson while eliminating Tooru.

And what could happen next?

My thought…

This chapter shows how awesome Caato truly is, starting from her soft side as a mother to her toughness against the enemy.

Araki is really doing her well, I thought there was no need to turn her into an antagonist with great power/influence or a silly plot twist that this unassuming grannie is the mastermind behind anything.

Caatofags had once described her as a mother who directs Jobin like a puppet and supervises Tooru as her subordinate whereas in reality, Araki has been portraying the three of them in a more balanced way rather than one being above anothers.

I really like her relationship with Jobin, I once said that they would make good partners if they were to be the final antagonists after Tooru, but sadly at this point I feel that Jobin is permanently dead.

There won’t be Yoshihiro-Yoshikage(like)’s cooperation against Josuke in this part… however, Caato continues to carry out her supportive role towards Jobin by trying to fulfill his main goal of curing Tsurugi and breaking the family curse.

Even so far, I haven't considered Caato as an antagonist, I still think of her as a 'wild card' for Josuke and Yasuho.

The mystery and next chapter prediction…

If this goes well, it looks like Caato's action in doing equivalent exchange to Tooru and Tsurugi will succeed in curing Tsurugi. The cracks on Tsurugi's face seemed to be diminishing. But with the 「Wonder of U」 following behind her, it shows that Caato's life too is in danger.

Then what will happen to the fully healed Tsurugi? Considering that the fusion happened to Josefumi and Kira does not make any of them 'alive' with their consciousness and instead creates a new consciousness we called “Josuke”, the new Tsurugi might not be the Tsurugi we know all along.

Besides, the equivalent exchange that happened on Tooru and Tsurugi is an exchange between rock-human and normal human and so far we still don't know what the effect will be. Will this be the answer to Tsurugi's weird behavior in the flashforward of chapter 83?

Then I also questioned about the harvest countdown of the New Locacaca in the flashforward, that in the previous chapter (106), the fruit in the pot was already gone. But in this chapter, there could be a possibility that Caato might hide the other parts of the plant (perhaps some branches) using her cards.

I think that there is starting to appear a slight hint linking the current events to the flashforward in chapter 83.

#jojolion spoilers #chapter review #kaato higashikata #tooru jojo #tsurugi higashikata #jobin higashikata #jjba part 8 #jojo's bizarre adventure #caato

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the-lightning-strikes-again · 5 years ago

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VLD S8 – The Purpose of Lance’s Altean Markings, Allura’s Canonically Inconsistent “Death,” and Voltron’s Mysterious Interstellar Road Trip in the End: Are Things Really As They Seem?

Hello dear ones, I received asks to follow up on my previous post about Allura’s capability to live a very long life if she hadn’t died in s8. I’d mentioned in this post that Alfor had connected Allura’s life force to the indestructible Voltron, and that this had significant implications for Lance’s strange Altean marks and Allura’s “death” in s8. So this is me, attempting to follow up on those requests!

Let’s start with those strange marks. It seems like a lot of us who have watched Voltron: Legendary Defender season 8 scratched our heads over Lance receiving Altean marks at all:

This event happens when Allura and the paladins are standing in the “connected consciousness of all existence”—which is this…Mother-Brain realm for every consciousness that ever existed ever. Allura is preparing to sacrifice herself alongside Honerva, because they both have to give of their energy to regenerate the fallen multiverse. Honerva is already accepting of this and already interacting with her dead family whose minds and forms are preserved within the Mother-Brain space. It seems, even so, Honerva is still alive because she hasn’t yet completed the foretold Wild Sacrifice Move of Ultimate Alchemy alongside Allura:

The Big Boom of Life happens after this point, so there’s something fascinatingly screwy about this realm. The typical separations between the Living and the Death are just…totally meaningless. We’re actively seeing a living Honerva physically interact with the minds and forms of her fallen son and husband. And if this Mother-Brain location truly preserves the consciousness of all existence, then I suppose it actually makes sense to me that Allura and Honerva could still be alive themselves while also being able to interact with the Dead who are preserved within this realm…

But Allura—she turns to the paladins and tells them that they’re all about to experience a massive fragmentation from her. It seems pretty heavily suggested that she’s going to die. In doing so, she kisses Lance and then gives him Altean marks:

And the first question I have is….whyyyy the marks? What the heck was that for? Because I think it’s really weird that she’d just give Lance the most visually identifying mark for her own species. At least, I think it’s weird on the surface. The more important question may lie within Allura’s motives...and that gets into some much larger implications for ways to view those marks and the show’s ending. Some of the theories I’ve seen about those marks:

Theory 1: Lance as Trans-Species to Preserve Allura’s Species and/or Allura Giving Lance Some Unknown Gift/Power

I want to bring this up because it appears to be a largely accepted theory that I’m now heavily questioning. I’m not sure who first vocalized this understanding of canon, but Neko Chicana offers the theory in their Youtube video “Why did Lance get Altean markings!?” The theory is that in Allura’s last-minute panic about dying, she was trying to ensure The Chosen Altean vibes got passed down. This would mean that Allura infused Lance with deep Altean powers to inherently change him from being human into being a trans-species human/Altean.

But I struggle with this interpretation, because…she already had an entire colony of Alteans, many of whom clearly were presenting with high quintessence sensitivity and would have been even potentially fit for Oriande. And it’s not like Lance was going to know how to apply alchemy without learning it anyway.

In terms of the transformation itself, it’s incredibly superficial. It’s a face-lift and that’s it, as Lance never exhibits any other features of a standard Altean. And not just from a visual perspective, but also from a physiological one. He definitely is not shown suddenly freaking out over having alchemy powers. He isn’t shown connecting with anything on the astral plane. I would even posit that he appears to be aging right alongside his fellow humans, given his more adult/less baby-face facial structure in the epilogue, just like everyone else:

This article here seems to contain a similar level of skepticism about a genuinely trans-species Lance.

And what would even be the point of converting Lance to have a token visage of Alteans, if Allura knows that his true heart and soul lies with his human family? Just by Allura’s reaction of disgust to his rounded ears in season 1, it seems pretty obvious that other Alteans would see him as “other.” If anything, a trans-species interpretation overly complicates the show here and generally can’t provide a self-contained, meaningful reason for its existence at all.

Theory Two: The Markings as a Token of a Lost Lover/Remembrances

Another suggestion has been that Allura gives Lance such markings just as…a reminder? Of herself? But I don’t feel this at all makes sense with seven previous seasons of her character behavior.

Allura is shown consistently trying to sacrifice herself and her things at all costs, without anything in return or demanding that people remember her. She did it in season 1 to regenerate a Balmera, knowing full well she could die. But we don’t see her asking Coran to sing a pretty song for her. She sacrifices herself again for Shiro, by tossing him out of the way of Galran soldiers, without even begging that he come back for her. She sacrifices herself in Oriande to the White Lion. She sacrifices her crown in season 7 to stabilize Shiro. She even gives up her dresses and her station as a princess in order to better fit in with the humans in season 7. It’s not inherent in Allura’s character to demand anything in return for her sacrifices, much less that she be remembered for them. As a matter of fact, she’s very particular about ensuring that other people get recognized for their actions, and she’ll often place her own good work as part of a “whole” accomplished by the many. Here’s an example from season 6, episode 1:

So here we see her raising up other people and their contributions rather than demanding some offering or worship for her actions.

Princess Allura doesn’t even hold a grudge for Keith being accepted as Black Paladin or Lance as Red Paladin in s3, despite the fact that she secretly cried over it.

So, Allura wanting anything in return for what she sacrifices, or trying to intentionally drag down someone’s spirit for her own comfort, is not inherent to her character. If anything in s8, Allura consistently seems to want the paladins to move on without her:

In response to the emotional distress of the other paladins, she doesn’t give them an everlasting token to memorialize herself, but instead gives encouragement for the future:

And even Shiro! He warns her that she’s about to become the multiverse’s most anonymous hero:

And Allura’s response to this?

So Princess Allura went into this s8 self-sacrifice, fully expecting that the paladins would keep her actions totally secret. She was completely and utterly prepared to accept the very reality that Lotor had threatened her with in season 6:

So literally the only reason in s8 that anyone remembers Princess Allura…is because the paladins choose to honor her memory despite her stated sentiments against it:

So…all of this is to say, I don’t think it makes sense to assume that suddenly, Allura would want to forever keep Lance from moving on. She’s literally handed them her blessing to move on, and suggested that they even hide what she’s done. It’s the paladins who choose to remember her. So I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest against an interpretation where Allura was intentionally trying to mark Lance to be her forever-doomed lost love. It’s completely inconsistent with other surrounding details about who Allura is.

I think there’s instead evidence to suggest a new theory about these marks. And if anyone’s suggested this before, please feel free to jump in, lol. I’m like, 1.5 years behind the times here, although I did find this article that also would seem to support the theory:

Theory Three: Lance’s Altean Marks as a Tactical Homing/Location Beacon, Strengthened by His and Allura’s Shared Bonds With Blue Lion

Before she casually walks off to her alleged death, Allura tells Lance, “I’ll always be with you.” And then she gives him the Altean marks:

While I think this “I’ll always be with you” statement has some classic lessen the hurt of impending death vibes, Allura herself actually states she’ll always be with him. How certain are we that she’s not being actually serious? That this isn’t an intentional decision to ensure some kind of ongoing link?

So backing up here, we know from previous seasons that Altean markings can glow, unlike the rest of their body. They appear to glow in response to external stimuli. For example, in season 5, Allura and Lotor’s markings glow because they are within the vicinity of Oriande and have a deep well of quintessence within them. And this glowy activity is discriminatory, because Coran’s marks don’t glow:

Lance’s own markings initially glow when activated by Allura:

So for Lance’s markings to glow at all, that means something is happening. It means that an all-new, external stimulus is making those markings react, and that the magic of it is active. And that Lance is now housing enough magic to react.

That article I linked to earlier suggests that perhaps Allura intended to use the marks as….a communicative link with Lance. However, in a full year since Allura’s disappearance, we see no evidence that Lance has been talking to a mysterious spirit!Allura. He seems pretty depressed, and everyone seems largely accepting of the concept that Allura is dead and also is incapable of interaction.

In which case, if you did have a link to a supposedly dead person, even if you wanted to keep it secret, wouldn’t you at least look a little more…happy? That they’re not actually gone? So something’s a little screwy there too, that makes me think Lance wasn’t in some kind of interdimensional communication with Allura.

But I do think Lance’s markings, and how they glow in response to external power sources in the final episode, suggest something about Allura’s state of being.

So let’s jump in. We know that Allura’s life force is inherently tied to Voltron:

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post of mine: Right in season 1, episode 1, Coran admits that Alfor has done some pretty wild alchemy. He physically connected Allura’s essence with the essence of Voltron—the single source of self-regenerating, infinite quintessence throughout the whole of the entire universe.

I don’t know if a person’s life force being personally connected to Voltron would confer physical immortality, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that as long as Voltron exists, Allura’s essence would be preserved within it. And as we saw in season 6, Shiro was capable of interacting with other paladins despite his physical death, because Black Lion had preserved his essence….

All of this backstory and worldbuilding means at the very least that Allura was also capable of linking some part of her quintessence to Lance as well. And that, even if she hypothetically didn’t have a body on the material plane, that she would be very active on the astral one.

So why specifically Altean marks, then?

This isn’t the first time in the show that strangely powerful bonds have been made by the touching of faces and the transfer of energy around Altean marks. As a matter of fact, we might have even seen Alfor actively bind Allura’s life-force with Voltron, right here:

In which case, Allura was simply mimicking the work of her father as she knew it, but on a much smaller scale. Because she knew from her father that it was possible to bond life-forces, and for some reason, that alchemy trick appears to involve the face or else something to do with Altean markings.

So therefore, the activation of this marking “link” and alchemical bond might help to explain why Lance actually appears to be smiling with tears in his eyes when the Voltron lions fly away:

But why even Lance specifically?? What about all the other paladins she’s made connections? What makes Lance so totally special?

It might not be unintentional that, out of all the lions possible, the one to respond to some unknown activator one year later—with massive amounts of quintessence in the bond—is Blue Lion.

Notice that while the other lions are in flight, none of them are glowing like Blue Lion. There’s something inherently special about Blue Lion right now, especially given that it’s not even the leader of the pack.

In this scene, we see the paladins rushing out per all the ruckus. Lance’s markings start to glow:

And then the lions powerfully surge off on their merry, totally unexplained way:

So…in looking back at this, it’s interesting that Lance’s marks are shown glowing in ONLY two instances: 1) When Allura first activates them, and 2) When the marks themselves mysterious activate again in response to Blue Lion glowing outrageously blue, and the lions soaring off into space as well…

Is it a mistake that Lance just so happens to be the only other living Blue Paladin in the universe?

Allura’s life force might have been connected to the full of Voltron, but season 3 shows that her communicative/mental connection to it is through Blue Lion alone. Because Black Lion certainly had nothing to say to her, at the very least.

So Allura’s life force is connected to Voltron…Blue Lion responds to an unknown source of massive, pure quintessence, and then Voltron follows…Lance’s markings start to glow....

Could it be that in order to even re-locate Voltron and the paladins again in the larger scheme of the multiverse, Allura needed Lance’s connection to Blue Lion as well? To keep Allura in spiritual/mental communion with Voltron and with that universe?

With Allura gone and the Atlas portion of Voltron totally missing from Voltron, there’s the hint that possibly the Lion Musical Chairs event has undone itself and reconfigured once more. Blue Lion has re-accepted Lance, with Keith and Shiro piloting Red and Black. The lineup in the screenshot below would suggest that Shiro’s the one in Red this time, resulting in an interesting addition to the Keith and Shiro relationship arc. It suggests that Shiro is now back on the team as an established paladin, as the right hand of the Black Paladin, and is actively supporting Keith’s ongoing growth as a leader:

But if Blue Lion were Allura’s only true connection to “speak” with and interact with Voltron on a material plane, then it would make sense that she would intentionally connect her own life-force to the last Blue Paladin.

Lance, out of all of the paladins and with respect to this lineup shown here, is the only one who would be even remotely capable of ensuring this link in their universe (notwithstanding as well that canonically, Allura was in a romantic relationship with him, which might have something to do with this too, idk).

So what does this mean for Allura’s state of being? What’s exactly happening in this moment? Why do the lions leave their paladins? Is everything truly so pointless and nihilistic?

So Lance’s markings and the exit of the Voltron lions result in what I feel are two interpretations of the entire end of Voltron. And I think one is potentially more consistent with the overall show than the other:

Theory One: Allura Really Died/Shed Her Physical Body/Was Lost to the Material Plane After a Year of Hard Work

So, we do have evidence that the work to restore the full of the multiverse began pretty quickly, and that there was an explosive event to jumpstart it:

We otherwise have no evidence to support that this image meant the work (to restore every thread and all things within the threads) was DONE. Yet. It may have taken an entire year to regenerate the multiverse, which would explain the Voltron lions suddenly reacting strangely after that span of time. If we assume that Allura really died, then this would suggest that—with the overarching multiverses finally totally restored—her energy is spent up. She’s physically dying. And per the extinguishing of her own life force, Voltron….somehow can’t exist on the material plane without her? Because let’s not forget, the whole mecha is connected to her life force. So this interpretation would suggest that in her dying/being unable to remain on the material plane, Voltron itself has to die as well. This could explain why at the end here, they activate to go be with Allura and team in the shiny afterlife party in the Mother-Brain dimension. Lance may be crying here because he feels or recognizes the last of Allura’s energy slipping away. And it’s possible I was misinterpreting his smile earlier, because it’s, idk, maybe a sob.

And there does seem to be some canon support for a potentially permanent break between Allura and the material plane, as well as for why Voltron would leave:

But I’m really struggling to understand the deathy interpretation of these events at the end of s8, from SEVERAL angles, haha.

Strike One:

This scene would appear to blatantly and outrageously contradict previous show worldbuilding. To accept a “death” interpretation, one must also accept that s8 completely rewrites the inherent properties and behavior of quintessence, as well as show details that Alteans/Altean technologies more consistently function as conduits/capacitors of external energy sources rather than as massive batteries by themselves. The true batteries, even into season 7 with Shiro and Atlas, appear to be becoming from sources external to the power-wielder. This reality largely relieves the personal cost of any alchemical action/draining oneself, just so long as you have a powerful enough battery. In which case, given the resources and deep knowledge available to Allura and Honerva even in this apocalyptic moment, any action resulting in physical death feels...unearned.

If you’re interested in more specifically about this, I have a few other posts looking at these basic worldbuilding details:

Question on Quintessence and General Worldbuilding in VLD S8

The Search for the “Bluest Quintessence” and S6 - The Most Unnecessary Conspiracy In VLD?

It’s entirely possible I could be missing some information that would reconcile the s8 worldbuilding contradictions about quintessence and Altean energy back to the previous seven seasons. I suppose it’s possible that this s8 regeneration trick resulted in Allura and Honerva being physically unable to handle the amount of power they were conducting. But just after casually re-watching the show, I heavily question whether this is possible or consistent with everything else, haha.

Strike Two:

The concept of Voltron not being needed in a peaceful universe is nonsensical. So this show is telling me that a gigantic mecha capable of massive construction projects and space anomaly protection services couldn’t reorganize its paladins or get new ones, and transition to a new day job? Because Voltron has to exist in a combat theater only? This is wildly myopic, especially considering that Voltron already has a team of five who could pilot it again via a little game of musical chairs…and even the final lineup shown would suggest that Shiro had already taken over Red. I guess if the Galra aren’t attacking?? This must mean that there won’t be any civilizations in need of help or in need of being protected from imminent natural disasters?? At the very least, a new day job would be an incredibly meaningful way to convert Voltron from a war machine to a champion of the people. And it would still give the paladins a reason to come back together as a team and to exercise the bonds they’ve forged together as defenders of the universe.

Strike Three:

After this s8 scene, and even assuming Allura has physically died, Voltron existed before Allura got linked to it. And it existed as a largely infinite and indestructible source of energy. Even if Allura did die, the loss of her personal quintessence was of no account to its existence. The worldbuilding of Voltron as a mecha suggests it didn’t need her to continue existing on the material plane like it had existed before their alchemical link from Alfor. And even if she’d died, taking Voltron’s life-force with her away from the material plane, then why in the world wouldn’t Voltron just…totally power down? Become completely inert with the lights fading from its eyes? But then, oh wait, according to the last seven seasons, Voltron is supposed to be indestructible and constantly self-regenerating even when temporarily drained, so how could it power down forever? Even the concept that Voltron could physically destroy/remove itself from the material world to fully join Allura on the astral plane is an oxymoron.

And even if Allura’s life force was fading out and the Voltron lions are dying too, how in the world could Lance’s Altean markings suddenly even manage to glow in response to an active and powerful external stimulus? And why would the lions themselves suddenly be lighting up and capable of expending massive amounts of energy on a sudden, random interstellar space trip?

Even if the Lions themselves longed to reunite with its dead creator or its missing piece per their Allurian life-force link (despite them clearly not caring when Alfor died or when Allura got put in stasis 10k years ago), this show would have me believe that Voltron wanted to die or give up? And...for what? To lounge about in an afterlife Cabana for Retired Mechas, sipping quintessence drinks while the universe experiences ongoing natural physical disasters or anomalies that could endanger entire galaxies? What if more trans-reality comets fell from the sky? They appear to not be an isolated incident, and where there’s one, there’s usually more…What if that causes more rifts to open? And let’s just assume for a moment that those two comets are the only two trans-reality comets in the multiverse. I guess we can all sleep tight tonight because Voltron is unconcerned that the universe still has several weak stitches between it and the quintessence field, where dark entities and rift creatures roam? Lol, what?

Lotor even confirms these weaknesses in season 4:

“Zarkon believed Alfor’s plan to blow up Daibazaal and destroy the rift between realities actually worked. No one comprehended that the experiments of my mother, Honerva, could never be undone.”

Lotor’s statement here would suggest that after everything that’s happened, it might be even easier to break open rifts. But okay cool, time for Voltron’s retirement/death, I guess. Just leave a peaceful universe to be one day swallowed up and destroyed by shadow rift creatures, dark entities, apocalyptic comets, and natural disasters…

Everything about the Allura/Voltron death theory doesn’t make sense to me and raises more questions than answers. So let’s look at another way of viewing this ending!

Theory Two: Allura Didn’t Die At All—She Just Finished Working for the Year And Needs a Ride Home

The fact that Voltron survives and is activated into movement by an external source of massive, pure quintessence suggests that Allura is likely NOT dead and is STILL ALIVE. In this case, the astronomical undertaking of regenerating a multiverse still took a full year to complete. We do know there’s no major time slippage between the paladin’s universe and the Universal Consciousness realm, because the paladins were seen right back in the heart of establishing/confirming peace when they returned to their universe. And again, s8 also shows people being able to interact on the border between the Living and the Dead, so Allura simply existing within this realm should not be enough to kill her. Because life and death are largely meaningless concepts in this space where all consciousnesses are preserved.

So, if Allura is alive and just finished her work, then oop, now she’s stuck in the middle of Space Nowhere without a certain ride home. So who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters. Voltron is the only ship that Allura has a deep psychical and life-force link to, so it would be within canonical bounds that if she just helped resurrect the multiverse, then surely one hard-working princess could use Lance’s markings (her own life force) to relocate her own universe, and then use that bond on the material plane to call Voltron from across the universe to come pick her up, lol.

I really like this re-interpretation of canon for several reasons:

One, it feels a lot more consistent with the world-building and the overall tone of the show.

Two, it suggests a much happier ending where canon confirms—sort of like the Iron Giant (1999) ending—that Allura would eventually reunite on the material plane with the paladins.

Three, it suggests that there’s been a full one-year span of time where Allura and Honerva were both working together to restore the universe…while in the presence of and even interacting with Alfor, Zarkon, and Lotor, and probably a billion other dead people they thought were gone forever, but who were preserved in form and mind within the Consciousness of the universe. I feel like there’s just LOADs of possible content someone could get out of this. Did Honerva and Zarkon reunite? Did Alfor get to hug his baby girl again? Did Allura and Lotor have a major heart-to-heart discussion about the Altean colony and his quintessence insanity, and positively reconcile? Which, regardless of however you interpret what Lotor’s accused of, Allura had already…exonerated his motives and turned him into, like, a Joan of Arc figure well before she saw him again. And she even wanted Honerva to honor his memory by doing the right thing:

So there’s some clear signs that Allura and Lotor could have reconciled now that there’s no apparent quintessence insanity or witch shenanigans afoot... And it’s very likely that Allura might have even reconciled with the true, uncorrupted Emperor Zarkon himself:

And in the meantime, what would the paladins of old be like? Were there other victims of this war who would have found it meaningful to interact in some way to obtain justice for themselves…or to obtain something more??

And this gets into reason four of why I like this re-interpretation of the ending. So canonically, mechas created out of the trans-reality comet are infinitely regenerating and indestructible. So not just Voltron, but also the Honervian/Sincline mecha. This suggests that Allura already had a ride home.

So why would Allura need more ships?

This interpretation has the potential to reverse all the painful deaths that happened throughout the show. The original paladins, the Alteans and Galrans who perished for various reasons...Alfor, Bandor, Lotor, Kova…even deaths we didn’t see.

And in calling Voltron back to her, is Allura maybe…planning to bring some new friends with her too? If she already has the Honervian/Sincline mecha to fly home, why does she need all five lions, anyway? Who would pilot them? Who else is waiting patiently in the celestial mind/heart of the multiverse to return to reality with her?

And reason five, on a simpler and maybe less galaxy-brain note, this interpretation provides a completely different context, however apparently sorrowful, for Allura’s canonical goodbyes:

Allura’s path did end here...at least as a paladin of Voltron. Because that position was temporary anyway. Restoring the multiverse was going to be an ultimate act. And there’s probably nothing after this that Allura could perform to outdo herself in saving things, lol. This is the height of everything she is and has worked for. She intentionally identifies this as her purpose:

“It is my purpose.”

Her action in s8 is the full and total culmination of everything she has learned and grown capable of doing since s1. Everything has been leading up to this. It’s her one chance to undo all the universal pain. And through restoring the multiverse, she’d be restoring balance in her own life too—to reconnect with her fragmented past, to give those from her past a chance to live in the new universe with her….

The other paladins, though—they were still needed in the meantime to confirm peace with the Galran empire, to convert it (however questionably) to a democracy, and to establish relations between Earth and other vast galaxies of people. Allura was not wrong that their paths as paladins had not ended. Because she needed them to ensure their universe would be truly at peace while she was up in the stars, working to restore and reconcile with all that had been lost in painful war.

And all of this would ultimately suggest that she would return to the universe, to the paladins, and probably take back the piece of her life force she’d given Lance that ensured a link with Blue Lion. Because…that homing beacon wouldn’t be needed anymore. Perhaps Allura would even consider decoupling the remainder of her life-force from Voltron, to fully reconcile herself to herself. To finally be whole and just Allura again, idk.

The only major problem with the “Allura is Alive and Bringing Some Friends/Family Home” interpretation is that...lol, the development team for the show doesn’t subscribe to it, at least not in any outward way I’ve heard. Based on their March 28, 2019 interview with Let’s Voltron, the executive producers talk about Allura like she’s dead. They say that they wanted to show sacrifice, the impact of death, and how important it is to honor the memory of the dead:

And we definitely feel it. There is a massive weight of loss and memorial in the finale here. Coran looks just this side of totally broken as he remembers Allura, and he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. He reiterates just how much Allura means to the people still alive in this universe:

“For some of us she was a diplomat, a teacher, a leader, and a friend. But to those of us around this table, she will always be family.”

The EPs have suggested that, like other shows, there may be ways to resurrect Allura, and there may have been happier endings possible. But again, please see the Theory 1 statements above regarding the massive worldbuilding contradictions when assuming that Allura had to die in the first place.

In which case, hilariously, the EPs have also expressed their interest in creative works that keep going, with plot tensions that require even supposedly dead heroes to return, as in this article here:

“You can kill Captain America a million times and he’ll always show back up.”

So creator statements are just all over the place regarding the finality of “death” or even of “separation” in this universe. We definitely don’t get a body to prove that Allura is dead. And we also know that canonically, there is a place where the rift between the Dead and Living breaks down. And oh, by the way, Allura just regenerated entire multiverse strands that had been destroyed. So even if it’s not as simple as…holding someone’s hand as they step out of the consciousness realm, what canonical detail or limitation would keep her from resurrecting them herself? It is well within Allura’s canonical range to bring back all of these people without dying herself.

Conclusion

Regardless of creator intention, the various contradictions in the worldbuilding itself make the angst of Allura’s death, the memorial statue, the lingering pain of the characters (oof, poor Coran and Lance especially), and all the interviews talking about Allura’s death feel excessively unnecessary. And at the same time, I’ve been very fascinated by what one can do with the details about the Consciousness Realm; the inherent properties of comet-based mechas, quintessence, and alchemy; Lance’s strange marks; and even the odd, last-minute Voltron interstellar space trip surging toward the Allura in the stars, with Blue Lion in the lead:

It appears that Allura could be very much alive in the final screenshot of her in the stars. Through Lance and their shared connection via Blue Lion, she’s maintained a homing beacon for her own reality, activated Voltron to complete a massive interstellar trip to come get her and likely several others—and now, she’s faithfully waiting in the Consciousness Realm with everyone, preparing for a family trip back to their resurrected worlds, in their trusty mechas.

I watched s8 on the day it dropped. I was in a daze about all of its wild and painful messaging. I wrote some unhappy metas about the sheer nihilism of this show. It’s taken me, lol, 1.5 years to actually go back and re-watch several episodes at a time. And I don’t believe this interpretation of the ending would fix every problem in Voltron: Legendary Defender. Sometimes, trying to make sense of this show feels like trying to reconcile quantum theory with classical mechanics, haha. So I’m sure one could poke holes in this post. And to even arrive at these conclusions, I had to throw out or reinterpret some of the worldbuilding and scenes, in direct conflict with the stated perspective of the show’s development team.

But even so...I derived most everything for this interpretation from the show itself. And even if the development team didn’t intend this happy ending of resurrections and reconciliations as I’ve suggested…it seems that this finale—at least while I’m thinking about it right now—is canonically possible and an attempt at consistency with the material provided across multiple seasons. It offers resurrections, redemptions, reconciliations...

Its ultimate message even genuinely coincides with the last episode’s title.

The End Is the Beginning.

And I really like that.

#Voltron #VLD #VLD s8 #Allura #Honerva #Lance #Lotor #Shiro #Hunk #Pidge #Keith #Alfor #Zarkon #Allura's not dead at all?#Lotor and others get resurrected and redeemed?#Shiro as the red paladin?#Allura and the paladins reunite?#voltron lion and sincline family space trip?#the lions are planning to return with the multitudes?#unlimited romance potential?#happy endings and redemptions?#lion musical chairs #this is my attempt to make sense of s8 with respect to previous season worldbuilding #it brought me a sense of peace with s8 and with the show's general potential given the ending we received #even if the development team rejects this ending it feels A LOT more consistent with the show's overall worldbuilding #and with the show's messages for hope down to the smaller quirky details like Lance's Altean markings #I cannot get over Allura returning with her friends and family to reunite the past with a better future #and to reunite her own missing pieces back to herself #this idea made my heart light and I hope this post helps lighten your heart too

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docholligay · 4 years ago

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LIVESTREAM WINNERS AND TOP POINT COMMENTS

THose of you who read the schedule already know this but the winners are:

HOLLIGAY INVOKES THE SPIRIT OF CLOSET GHOST

and

WE COOK FOR DINNER IN THE APOCALYPSE

Please join me for both! It’ should be a terrifying, thrilling time.

AND NOW, THOSE OF YOU WHO MADE ME FEEL THE WARMEST. Thank you to all who answered--I know this was super self indulgent and it means a lot to me that you took the time. So, literally 12 out of the 13 of you got at least one point (One person did not give any details, or even a quote) MAZEL.

Point allocations are below!!

One point winners:

4(?)ish years ago, you sent Jet a series of letters/cards/funeral lilies, from different Sailor Moon characters. The lilies were for Mako. One card was from Michiru, after Haruka's death. I have never been able to find them again, but I just loved the care you put into them--how they were all written specifically from the character, the fact that you even put tear stains and perfume on the cards. It was just so creative and touching, and it felt like the characters were real for an instant, mourning and living and giving you a peek at their lives. --- @kumeko (That was A Little Letter, and Mako’s was actually a separate thing for the same contest!)

“Before you get yourselves killed I want to go on record as saying this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” Rei stood with her hands on her hips at the front of the garage- from that short story about Mina and Haruka strapping an engine to a shopping cart. You can really feel how rei must feel, the resigned exasperation mixed with genuine, but hidden, concern for Mina and haruka’s safety. I think i have said the exactsame thing before people i know do stupid shit. --- BeefSalad33 (oh ma, an oldie but, I think, a goodie)

OH MAN. I am always thinking nonstop about that piece where Minako confronts Seiya about bullying Haruka, specifically for the line where Mina spits out "you think she'll love you for this?" and UGH that LINE. it HAUNTS me, I want to BITE DOWN ON IT AND NEVER LET GO, I WANT TO PUT IT EVERYWHERE EVER BECAUSE IT HURTS SO GOOD, AND I DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT SEIYA. --- @wouldntyoulichentoknow (I’m so glad that I’ve managed to make both you and jetty grit your teeth and care about Seiya at some point ahahah)

"*But flowers grow from death and decay, don’t they? That has always been true, you know that, Mako. You are a rose of perfect beauty, grown in the rich fertilizer of your loss.*

She threw the stress ball across the room, knocking over the cup on the sink, spilling the ice down the drain."

The contrast between reminding herself of how life works, and then still being bitter about it, and knowing what she is and being frustrated about it. It's a lot, when sorting out various issues- i have trauma, and that makes me better at empathizing with people, i'm adaptable long-term, and that means i can put up with some bullshit, that kind of thing, but that doesn't mean those are wholly good things. It's nice to see it put into words, and so plainly, and with such a strong reaction of it.

Roses can still grow wild, as pretentious as that sounds with how your passage resonates to me, but it's still nice to feel that. ---- @katrani (I’m so glad it resonates with you! I liked that line a lot! )

2 point answers:

Christmas Carol, Stave 1 - “You are a terrible person,” she jutted out her chin, feigning strength. “Fareeha deserved much better than you. But,” she took a deep breath. “I still hope she forgives you, someday. Someday, I hope you will deserve it.” It feels like cheating to use the most recent thing you’ve written, but nonetheless this section conveys so much about your take on Mercy, so quickly. She may be an idealist, the peacekeeper and builder, and she may want Pharah to have a relationship with her mother that’s not this disaster, but that doesn’t stop her from acknowledging that Ana’s been the primary factor in making it what it is and telling Ana that directly. I love how you write Mercy (and Tracer for that matter) as very warm characters who try to see the best in their situations but won’t gloss over the fact that sometimes, someone does have to be shot in the fucking face. “Good” doesn’t mean “hopelessly naive”, even with a pacifist, and I appreciate that you have characters who show that.

Bonus, and a fringe case as technically part of the Fushigi Yuigi hateblog: “She was still trying to get home, had been unable to get Tamahome to let her poison him, and then Nakago had hugged her into his chest until she had been forced to flatten him with a punch to the nads. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was trying to have a moonlight bath to consider her options and wash the stink of a man off of her.

And then, Tamahome, again.” - Haruka-gets-dumped-into-Fushigi-Yuugi-as-Yui was a delight that entire episode, but this post was one of the best. Is it really just narrativizing your frustrations with the many, many writing choices that were made here? Absolutely. But it’s a fun little bit of comedic pacing here, especially with the utter exhaustion of Haruka that this bullshit isn’t over yet. (“Fuck my life” to the moon wondering if Usagi could help and regretting how hard it would be to drown herself are close runners-up on that front.) --- Regalli

(Mercy is, in many ways, my attempt to write someone who is MOSTLY a pacifist that I can respect. It’s not easy for me! I often find pacifism to be cowardice, because so often in life the people I know who are pacifists are, well, not the folks in the street. So i thought, could you write someone who is very hesitant to kill, who believes that even Doomfist, even Reaper, even whoever, deserve care if they are hurt, who believes that a sword will not leave her hand free to uplift the fallen, and make her brave? And make her strong? And so was born, Mercy, who proved that, yeah that person, at least in my mind, can exist.)

I think one of my favorite passages from your writing is from "The Rest is Commentary". Particularly the part that starts with "I am a doer. " That entire paragraph is wonderfully written, with mix of beautifully descriptive language to describe *why* you don't trust words. It's slightly paradoxical, but it also fits with the rest of the essay (?) so well. And even beyond that, I love reading when you write about your faith. You are deeply devout woman, and a personal aspiration to me. When you write about your faith, it reminds me that there is work that needs to be done to live it, and not easy work either. But it is very much worth every bead of sweat, and every drop of blood. --- @shavedjudomonkey

(Thank you so much! I love that people have connected so much with my Jewish writing)

3 point answers:

From Requiem for the Great Consummation, I adore the word play with "compose." Ie, in the line, "Michiru folded her hands in her lap and composed herself." Why? I'm a musician. So, Michiru, with her music, holds a special place in my heart. (Why Ami gets the music attacks is beyond me. WTF?) I don't think the writers ever really understood what it takes to be a musician, and while fanfic writers often include Michiru's music, I've never really seen it done well. (I'm sure it has been. I just haven't seen it.) Music is all about structure. It has to feel free and soaring, but it can only be that because of the intense amounts of tension and structure underneath. A kite without a string plummets. When I reach for high, soaring notes, that's when I have to be most conscious of having a solid base. Making music Is constant tension. So, often when I see writers portray musicians, it's all "she never felt so free and untethered as when she sang/played the,violin/piano/whatever." And I think, "wow, really? She must have been Crap." So, back to compose/compose. This wordplay shows that tension. The "I have rehearsed this 5,000 times and am still working so hard I'm sweating standing still in this freezing auditorium so that it can look and sound completely free and easy." This is Michiru's entire life. She is composing herself. She is outlining complex rhythms and tensions and resolutions that even though you hear when the piece is played, you don't fully take in or understand, and all you consciously comprehend is 'wow, pretty.' Because that's how music works. Organs have keys that can't be heard by the human ear, and composers include them in their pieces. Why? We can't hear them! But we feel them. If you look at the score for an orchestral piece, it contains So. Many. Notes. So much going on. But when you listen, all you hear is that melodic theme. But if you take out anything underneath, things change and cam fall apart. Michiru lives her life like that. She creates herself, composes herself, and it looks elegant and free and easy, but it is so so very tightly controlled and rehearsed, and that particular wordplay showed off that side of Michiru's music, which is one I don't get to see explored much. --- @incorrecttact

(Thank you so much for this!! I am NOT a musician, but so much of Michiru and music speaks to me, the structure of it, the discipline, the way it allows you to express yourself while hiding behind something else. And yes! I think of that double meaning so much!)

I want you to know... that this was very, very difficult. I made a notepad and collected shit I'd pulled out from your work where I could find comments where I did such, and then I AGONIZED. Here is where I landed but know it's so close with other things god.

"Winston worked in earnest at his inventions, and Emily went back to teaching, and the two of them began to cook for each other again. Family dinners once a week resumed, grew with some of the new recruits that were being folded into their family. Pharah and Mercy’s daughter took them to the zoo, the park, out into the world. Dva had continued the game they had all been playing before Tracer died, their party picking up after the terrible and well-done loss of their beloved rogue. ***Life did not return, but it grew forward. It bloomed again.***" — A Clock's Fading Chime

I ended up choosing this one because I hate it a little when I read it. Not because it's not good but because it's SO PAINFUL. I love so much about the way you talk about love, and I think grief is all a part of that. We grieve because we loved. The idea of the grief period, especially for those in a close circle of a lost person, being like the cycle of the seasons where a flower may die but life blossoms in the soil it left behind is so evocative and perfect and everything leading up to that last line is the soil for which that line got to bloom. The slow, simple way life returns to them, that they adjust to the heavy rock in their pack (A piece of yours I revisited for this and a metaphor I will always carry with me) and start growing stronger together. And that they find it WITH EACH OTHER too just god, it kills me. But would I rather wish it wasn't necessary? YUP. FOR SURE. It hurts to think about someone who plays Lena's role dying in our own lives and trying to mend the rift between those left behind. But it brings all those possibilities and who may have gone already before to mind because it feels so grounded in the reality of what these experiences are like and shit it's just a great sampling of everything I love about your work. Beautiful prose, saying so much with so little, grounded in stuff that feels read, and ending on a banger, transfixing line. ---- @thoughtfulfangirling

(Thank you so much! I LOVED that whole series of fics around that, as it is in the way that I often like to toy with the nature of grief, and the way that we go on. Things aren’t ever the same, but we go on. And I’m so glad you gt into it too! It’s very self-indulgent for me, basically everything with OW, so I love when other poepl like it)

4 point answers:

Given that I am not Jewish, I hope this isn't overstepping my bounds, but your passover Seder speech really spoke to me this year. Specifically the bits about the relationship between cowardice and metaphorical bondage:

"This is a celebration of our freedom from bondage, but it is a also a reminder, a call that we must ensure we do not, in cowardice, return ourselves to bondage. "

Without explaining too much, and risking the kind of parasocial oversharing that you lamented the other day in a post, this particular push and pull has been at the forefront of my mind this year. The intense gravity that the familiar, the easy, the safe, can have, versus the genuine terror of pressing out into the unknown in search of something better.

Trying to change, and to do better, and to press on, is fucking terrifying, and hard. But, that is not an excuse. And I appreciated the reminder. --- @blastoise-m

(Not overstepping at all! I am so glad that it speaks to you, I really, really love this kind of writing, and I really should get back to doing more of my Jewish writing. My rabbi is leaving, because we apparently don’t have the money to have a rabbi! And he’s readying people to be lay leaders, and called on me to be someone who could give Divrei Torah (sort of like our sermons) because of my tendency to do stuff like this, and it’s very scary! But really exciting as that’s the kind of stuff that had me interested in being a rabbi, is picking this stuff apart and applying it to our own lives HI YOU ASKED FOR NONE OF THIS SORRY)

"There are no beautiful deaths in this world, and am sorry that you must know it. Rei never was allowed to say goodbye. I watched Haruka grow weaker and more ill every single day. We each have been jealous of the other, at turns, but I tell you this truth now: Our lives mean much more than our deaths. You and Seiya had a wonderful love story, and you raised a wonderful daughter, and unfortunately it is very often difficult to finish a story in a satisfying sort of way. It is not the end of your story, simply of hers. For you, it is a new chapter"

I think this is still one of my top 5 fav fics that you've ever written. I still think of it randomly once in a while. It's such a small moment but it sold me Usagi and Seiya in a way never would have expected. It's such a moment of growth for both Usagi and Muchiru. A small moment of connection for two people who are so different.

This is wrapped up in the entire MaS series, which I could never separate from this work let alone this quote. The entire series is a series about love and all its many permutations. About finding meaning in a world when you think your meaning has been taken away. About carrying on when you think there's no reason to do so. And I think this quote really encapsulates all of that.

This story, this entire series, is one the favorite things I've ever read and I'm so glad that you decided to share it. --- @madegeeky

(I truly and in all ways love how much you love this fic, it cheers em and makes me so happy every time I am reminded of it. And thank you for loving that line! I FEEL that line. It’s been true for every death that has come to me, so I love when it has meaning for others. )

The 5 point answer:

"God separated the sky and the sea, and that’s true, but there will always be the horizon where they blend."

I'm not much of a quote person. I'll often remember the feeling or the takeaway but rarely the words themselves. This, though, has stuck with me.

There is so much in this world, and so many people, who see everything as absolutes. Black and white. Good or bad. Right or wrong. And as I've grown and changed, that has come to bother me more and more.

This quote is such an elegant and accessible way to express how that oh-so-common point of view is a fallacy. And really it's just a lovely line that invokes both lovely imagery and feeling. ---- @seolh

I FORGOT I WROTE THIS, and like the completely arrogant piece of shit I am, when I read it was I was like, “Oh fuck, that’s a solid line.” And yes I am with you on getting older and relizing that the horizon line can be so fuzzy out there, sometimes, and this quote WEIRDLY came back to me when I needed it, a lot, and so thank you!

#names for thing

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jenmyeons · 5 years ago

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Crush Culture

moodboard credit to crush culture’s biggest fan @kyungseokie <3

Pairing: kyungsoo x female reader Summary: Turns out drunk-dialing your crush in the middle of the night isn’t as bad as you initially thought.

Word count: 1620

Author’s note: what was supposed to be a drabble turned into a lot a little more but this is hopefully the fluffiness you were seeking jae! can’t believe i’m taking a fluff request from the queen of fluff herself @j-pping this is wild

A dragged out ‘Kyungsoo~’ greets him over the line when he in his disoriented sleepy state answers the phone with a grumble.

The sound of your voice with the unmistakable drunken slur immediately has him perking up as he leans in squinting, trying to make sense of what ungodly hour of the night or morning it is. In the end, Kyungsoo gives up and instead asks why he’s the one at the receiving end of your drunk dialing.

“I- I just-” you hiccup while trying to get the words out. “I just missed you so, so, so, so, so much. Why didn’t you come with me and the tall ones out for drinks, Kyungsoo~?”

Kyungsoo’s brows draw together in confusion. “The tall ones… do you mean Chanyeol and Sehun?”

The answer he receives is an almost incomprehensible one but he thinks he makes out a yes. Relief. At least you’re in somewhat good hands, Kyungsoo thinks to himself.

“Where are you? Are you still with the idiots?” He asks, worry lacing his still sleep-heavy voice.

“No, no, no!” You interject. “They left for this… this… I don’t know,” you relent at last and Kyungsoo can feel his stomach sinking at the thought of you out by yourself without a sober cell in your body.

“I wanna go home” There are sniffles heard now and Kyungsoo sighs with defeat, you always were an emotional drunk.

“Tell me where you are and I’ll pick you up,” there is no hesitation in his statement and before you’ve even replied with a vague description of your whereabouts, Kyungsoo already has a pair of sweats on, heading for the door without bothering with a jacket. He quickly slips his shoes on and walks out of the apartment with determination in his step.

The drive from Kyungsoo’s home isn’t very far from your location and he is relieved to see that you followed his simple instructions to stay where you are while he makes the drive to pick you up.

You’re seated at the sidewalk with your high heeled shoes taken off and discarded to the side, forgotten, as your knight in shining armor pulls up with his sleek car a few meters away. In the time since Kyungsoo ended the call with you in order to concentrate on his driving, you’d managed to at least somewhat sober up the slightest bit. The lack of alcohol fogging your brain quickly reminds you of the predicament you’ve put yourself in; drunk dialing long time friend and crush in the middle of the night, forcing him to come save you from what could otherwise end in disaster, had you actually stayed out in the middle of the night all alone.

The door of the driver’s side opens and a disheveled and unfairly good looking Kyungsoo appears in your line of sight. Looking good despite being rudely awakened at an ungodly hour should be illegal, you think to yourself.

Without much more than a greeting and a ‘how are you feeling?’, to which you answer with an unconvincing ‘fine’, Kyungsoo pulls you up from the sidewalk and steers you over to his car.

The vehicle smells like him is all you can think as you buckle your seatbelt in silence. As if every little thing doesn’t already remind you of him. His own natural scent along with the faint hint of his cologne feels like it will consume you and you can’t wait for this drive to soon be over. Streetlights pass by in a blur and Kyungsoo’s soft humming to whatever tune is playing on the radio and fatigue takes you over. The alcohol starts wearing off and with Kyungsoo’s angelic voice, you’re quickly lulled to sleep.

Your soft snoring reaches Kyungsoo’s ears and he steals a quick glance at your sleeping state, head resting against the window, passing street lamps fleetingly lighting up your features and he thinks you look a lot younger while you’re sleeping. As quickly as he takes his eyes off the road to look at you, Kyungsoo tears his gaze away from you to focus on the task at hand. He contemplates for a while if he should make the long drive to your own place across town but decide against it as he feels a yawn separating his lips. Blinking away the fatigue which starts to once again cloud his eyes behind his thick rimmed glasses. His right hand itches to release the steering wheel and instead grab your left one which rests on your thigh. Not wanting to cross any boundaries, Kyungsoo grips the wheel a little stronger and tries thinking about something else. Anything other than how your fingers would feel intertwined with his.

The car coming to a halt in front of the familiar building of Kyungsoo’s apartment and the gentle shaking of your shoulder pulls you into consciousness. It takes a minute or two for your disoriented brain to connect the dots of your whereabouts and you send Kyungsoo a questioning look.

“I don’t trust that I can drive you all the way home without falling asleep at the wheel,” he explains softly and you know deep down that he probably doesn’t mind, he wouldn’t have picked you up otherwise, yet the need to apologize still takes over.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him sincerely and feel the warmth of a blush spreading through your cheeks. “I shouldn’t have called you this late.”

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather you wake me up in the middle of the night than going home all by yourself.”

Not sure what to say so you just nod and open the car door. The chill of the night air making you shiver while still being refreshing in contrast to the stuffy air inside the car.

“I’ll make you a cup of tea once we get inside,” Kyungsoo states casually, walking around the car to lead you towards the entrance of the building. Your feet slightly unsteady from a night of drinking and wearing heels.

True to his words, the first thing he does when the two of you get inside is turn the kettle on while you settle on one of the stools by the kitchen counter. Kyungsoo works in silence, only asking what kind of tea you want and you feel strangely out of place in your friend’s home. Unsure whether it’s due to the embarrassment of drunk calling your crush or the suffocating quietness but the atmosphere is making your brain malfunction. You observe how he with a familiar comfort shuffles around the kitchen, heart thumping against your rib cage as you imagine how it would be to see this on a daily basis. How lucky you would be.

Then Kyungsoo looks at you as he places the teacup in front of you and the last bit of liquid courage leaves your system in five daunting words.

“I’m in love with you.”

Your right hand instantly flies up to cover your mouth as soon as the words that have haunted you for years are spoken into existence. You watch with dread as Kyungsoo’s round eyes widen in shock, his mouth falling agape and the regret of your confession comes creeping, burning your cheeks and neck.

After an eternity of regret and furious blushing on your part, Kyungsoo finally breaks the quiet.

“Come again?”

“Please don’t make me say it again,” you plead with tears of embarrassment threatening to spill as well as a thickness building in your throat, awaiting the rejection which you’re sure will come.

In a weak attempt at gathering yourself, turn away from the intense stare of Kyungsoo’s gaze - needing to focus on anything other than the man holding your heart.

Kyungsoo, normally calm and collected can feel both his mind and heart racing from the words of the confession which still hang in the air. Waiting for him to say something - anything really. However, all words have left him and he stays rooted in his spot. The moment he has been dreaming of finally arrives and like a dumbass, he can’t even tell you he loves you too. He is so deeply in love to the point where he wonders if anyone has ever sparked such feelings in him before you. Probably not.

Your stressed out state and the way you turn your head to look away from him seems to do the trick as his hands move to cup your face at their own accord, forcing you to look back at him. There’s a fragment of a moment where Kyungsoo hesitates as he leans in before his lips lock with yours.

Instinctively, your hands find purchase at his waist - pulling him closer by the fabric of the worn out t-shirt you’re sure he only ever wears to bed. The kiss deepens at the slight tilt of Kyungsoo’s head and your mouth works against his until the lack of air becomes overbearing. As you pull apart, his hands stay firmly where your neck meets your ears, rough thumbs stroking gently at your cheeks.

“We’ll talk more about this in the morning,” he manages to make out breathily after several moments of silence. His gaze then flickering down to your forgotten teacup on the counter. “For now, just drink your tea then let’s go to bed.”

How he manages to keep up a cool exterior is beyond him and the smile playing at your lips makes his heart race wildly, making him steal a chaste kiss before settling down beside you, playing with your free hand as the two of you chat about anything other than the elephant in the room while you drink your tea.

You can definitely get used to this.

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